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I have written previously on why the state should not endorse gay marriage. I received numerous comments on that post and if you bother to read through all of them, you will find that they quickly move toward the question of whether the gay lifestyle is good for those in it and whether those in it should be raising children.

As a continuation of that discussion, I want to point my readers to a pamphlet written by the Family Research Council called “The Top Ten Myths About Homosexuality.” The pamphlet is well written and seems to be well researched, with copious citations of scientific papers.

Below are the ten myths which are expanded upon in the article.

Myth No. 1: People are born gay.

Fact: The research does not show that anyone is “born gay,” and suggests instead that homosexuality results from a complex mix of developmental factors.

Myth No. 2: Sexual orientation can never change.

Fact: Thousands of men and women have testified to experiencing a change in their sexual orientation from homosexual to heterosexual. Research confirms that such change does occur—sometimes spontaneously, and sometimes as a result of therapeutic interventions.

Fact: There is no scientific evidence that change efforts create greater harm than the homosexual lifestyle itself. The real ethical violation is when clients are denied the opportunity to set their own goals for therapy.

Myth No. 4: Ten percent of the population is gay.

Fact: Less than three percent of American adults identify themselves as homosexual or bisexual.

Myth No. 5: Homosexuals do not experience a higher level of psychological disorders than heterosexuals.

Fact: Homosexuals experience considerably higher levels of mental illness and substance abuse than heterosexuals. A detailed review of the research has shown that “no other group of comparable size in society experiences such intense and widespread pathology.”

Fact: Both because of high-risk behavior patterns, such as sexual promiscuity, and because of the harm to the body from specific sexual acts, homosexuals are at greater risk than heterosexuals for sexually transmitted diseases and other forms of illness and injury.

Myth No. 7: Children raised by homosexuals are no different from children raised by heterosexuals, nor do they suffer harm.

Fact: An overwhelming body of social science research shows that children do best when raised by their own biological mother and father who are committed to one another in a lifelong marriage. Research specifically on children of homosexuals has major methodological problems, but does show specific differences.

Myth No. 8: Homosexuals are no more likely to molest children than heterosexuals.

Fact: Sexual abuse of boys by adult men is many times more common than consensual sex between adult men, and most of those engaging in such molestation identify themselves as homosexual or bisexual.

Fact: Research shows that homosexuals actually have significantly higher levels of educational attainment than the general public, while the findings on homosexual incomes are, at worst, mixed.

Myth No. 10: Homosexual relationships are just the same as heterosexual ones, except for the gender of the partners.

Fact: Homosexuals are less likely to enter into a committed relationship, less likely to be sexually faithful to a partner, even if they have one, and are less likely to remain committed for a lifetime, than are heterosexuals. They also experience higher rates of domestic violence than heterosexual married couples.

I ask you to go read the entire article to get the details behind these claims; they are backed up by research citations. The bottom line is this: science shows that the gay lifestyle is generally destructive of those in it and we should not, as a society, be promoting it.

Does this mean that every gay person experiences the problems cited in the research? Obviously not. We’re dealing with statistics and probabilities, so there are absolutely gay people who are exceptions to the research findings. However, the gay marriage movement is asking for a state endorsement of their lifestyle, and the only way we can approach this issue is to look statistically at those who practice the lifestyle.

About The Author

Comments

In the U.S. in 2008, blacks comprised 36% of all arrests, 36% of murders, 39% of non lethal violent crimes, and 30% of property crimes, while only accounting for 12% of the general population.

Do you believe the black race is inherently pre-disposed to criminal behavior Bill? I hope you don’t – and I would think the reason you don’t is because it can be misleading to quote blind statistics, without taking into account the social, cultural, economic, and psychological inequalities that contribute to them.

Being gay definitely carries with it a social and cultural stigma. And the psychological impact of that stigma will most probably impact other areas such as economic and social status. Of all the statistics you quoted, the ones that weren’t inconclusive were completely ignorant of the effects of these contributing factors.

I see no rational argument here against homosexuality. The only argument against homosexuality is religion-based, and I think the Supreme Court will confirm that view.

Bill Pratt

Mark,
Who said they’re bad?

Bill Pratt

Jim,
You said “it can be misleading to quote blind statistics, without taking into account the social, cultural, economic, and psychological inequalities that contribute to them.”

If what you say is true, then we should be able to find research on gays who live in communities that embrace them which contradicts all of the so called “blind” statistics which show their lifestyle to be destructive. My understanding is that some research on the homosexual lifestyle is done on homosexual people who are living in places where their lifestyle is not only accepted, but celebrated. I lived in Atlanta for many years during the early 90’s and the gay lifestyle was very much accepted in midtown Atlanta. Likewise, San Francisco has had a strong gay population for many years. Have the researchers avoided these areas? I don’t think they have.

Again, my understanding is that the research yields the same kinds of results regardless of where it is done. The research cuts across demographics. What you’re saying in your comment is that statistically sampling the gay lifestyle is impossible, that the results are hopelessly corrupted due to “social, cultural, economic, and psychological inequalities.” Where is the evidence for your claim? I would love to believe you, and it should be simple to find this research, if it exists. In fact, if you can cite research on gay-friendly communities which contradicts the research in the pamphlet, I will be glad for you to publish it here; I really would. I don’t want to be spreading falsehood.

By the way, religion is not primarily why I do not want to promote the gay lifestyle (it is interesting that you brought up religion, not me). It is the research I’ve seen that has convinced me that this lifestyle is destructive. I don’t want to see people destroy their lives. I think it is fundamentally unloving of someone to tell a person struggling with this issue to just go ahead and do whatever makes them happy, to engage in a lifestyle with dangerous consequences. How is that loving?

Jim

Bill,

I think the evidence of my claim that your statistics are likely corrupted is in common sense. I believe also the burden of proof is more on the one who is quoting the statistics to support an argument. Yes many areas of the country are “gay-friendly”, but I would bet you would find alot of those gay people in those gay friendly cities come from broken homes, where their conservative parents have disowned them. Even if that is not the case, simply knowing that you would be shunned for your sexual orientation in many areas of the country would be enough of a psychological impact to affect your relationships and career.

And even if your statistics were correct, what would you do when you encountered an exception to your statistics? Would it not be fundamentally unloving to tell a gay person who is in a happy, committed relationship with their partner that their lifestyle is sinful and that they must reverse their sexual orientation? How is that loving?

http://tangenttalk.blogspot.com Rob

The gay people I’ve known are just fine mentally. Some have suffered based on the views of society or their parents as they were growing up, but otherwise fine.

Even if it is all the things in your article are true, gays are still American citizens. They are not endangering others or infringing on others’ rights. If they want to enter into a binding, legal relationship, who am we to tell them no?

So throw civil unions at them, right? If I were gay and in a committed relationship, I would want it to be recognized by society the same as others. That leads me to either two things: 1) all unions are civil unions – churches, etc. can have marriages and call them that or 2) marriage for all.

As far as children, I have read some mixed reviews on children with gay couples vs. the traditional nuclear family. How many households in America have a traditional nuclear family anymore though? That’s not exactly a reason to endorse it, but I would say that I’d definitely prefer a married gay couple over a foster home, a group home, or an unmarried heterosexual couple.

http://tangenttalk.blogspot.com Rob

Oops – changed “who am I to tell them no” to “who am we to tell them no”. I is able to speaks the English. I swears.

Bill Pratt

Jim,
You said, “Would it not be fundamentally unloving to tell a gay person who is in a happy, committed relationship with their partner that their lifestyle is sinful and that they must reverse their sexual orientation? How is that loving?”

It’s not the government’s job to write laws for the exceptions. The government is supposed to promote the common good, and it is clear that the common good would not be served by promoting same sex marriage. The science shows us that this lifestyle is generally destructive of those in it. Why would we want to write laws that promote an unhealthy and destructive way of living? We don’t write laws that promote drug use or that promote sexual promiscuity, but the research shows that these are two of the behaviors that are often part of the gay lifestyle.

With regard to my telling an individual what to do about their sexual orientation, it would depend on my relationship with that person and whether I felt I could help them. Remember, we are talking about certain behavior patterns that are wrapped up in this lifestyle that are destructive. If I had a close relationship with a gay person, and I knew that they were behaving in dangerous ways, I would certainly want to help them stop. If they desired to change their sexual desires, I would find someone that could help them.

Bill Pratt

Rob,
I, too, have known gay people who seem mentally fine, but that’s not the point. Your sample size is too small, and I would also question yours or my ability to determine whether someone is really mentally fine. We don’t know what goes on inside people’s minds or what they do behind closed doors.

That is why we go to the research and we base our decisions on studies that look at large populations. Our anecdotes get us nowhere when it comes to public policy.

If you read my post on what the purpose of marriage is and why the state has an interest in promoting heterosexual marriage, then you will see that gay marriage is not some trifling issue that religious folks are upset about for no reason. Marriage is a bedrock of every civilization, and to undermine it is to cause serious damage to a society.

Jim

Bill,

Ok I will put aside the fact that I don’t think you should be quoting the “research” and the “science” that indicates the gay lifestyle is generally destructive – because this research is flawed for the reasons I’ve already outlined.

But to focus on what you said about how you specifically (not the government) would treat a gay person:

“If I had a close relationship with a gay person, and I knew that they were behaving in dangerous ways, I would certainly want to help them stop. If they desired to change their sexual desires, I would find someone that could help them.”

What if they weren’t behaving in dangerous ways? What if they were in a committed, stable and loving relationship? And what if they didn’t want to change their sexual desires? Would you still advise such a gay person that their sexual orientation was wrong?

http://tangenttalk.blogspot.com Rob

I just read the post you linked to. Here are a few thoughts on it and your comment:

1) I, in no way, disagree with the positive nature of the traditional nuclear family.
2) How can the government support marriage without the use of force? This article has some ideas. Admittedly, I only read the bold print, so take it with a grain of salt.
3) If it is so imperative to not undermine marriage, why aren’t people all riled up about divorce? I would have to say that a divorce rate of 50% against 97+% of the population is much more relevant that the recognition of marriage of a percentage of <3% (using the number from above).
4) How does the American government actually promote marriage currently? It is generally ambivalent about the joining and splitting of it in our laws. It exists mainly as a legal arrangement.
5) As another pointed out, not all heterosexual marriages produce children (on purpose or otherwise). If you're not going to have children, what the point of getting married?
6) I don't see how legalizing gay marriages has any effect on the importance of heterosexual marriages. Is the word so sacred that it must mean a man and a woman?
7) What's your stance on civil unions (if you've blogged about it, a link would do)?

I am honestly interested in the opposition to gay marriage. I am personally a very happily married man of 17 years with 4 children. For me, two gay men being married would have zero impact on my life or the lives of my children … unless one of them happens to be gay. In which case, I hope they live a long, loving life with a partner that makes them happy and that this union is recognized by society as a legitimate one.

I don't have time to dig up any research, assuming that it exists, that would support my opinion that most of the problems that homosexuals have is due to their complete ostricization (is that even a word?) in our society that has only changed somewhat in the last decade or so. I know it's a stretch because of the natural vs. unnatural argument, but imagine if your heterosexuality were considered a sin by most of society … that your parents would disown you if they found out … that you might get beaten for just inquiring if a woman was interested in you. Might you not have some issues to deal with in your adulthood?

Raphael Wong

A few observations:

(1) Jim, why shouldn’t Bill be quoting any of the scientific evidence raised against gay marriage? Is that simply your cognitive bias at work? Besides, it seems that gay-friendly research also has similar defects, so it’s even there.

(2) I do think that the global perspective is omitted when discussing same-sex marriage. It is not just American-white-caucasian-Christian culture that espouses “heteronormativity”; many other cultures too. The consternation with the same-sex marriage debate is that the West, especially the USA, has some form of ill-gotten cultural leadership that imposes pro-gay values on the rest of the world, simply on the case that Western Pro-Gay Values are superior to every other system of cultural values in the world. I.e. Neo-imperialism by the back door.

(3) Rob, marriage is symbolic as well. It represents the joining of two different wholes to form one new whole. Where it doesn’t unite physically, it unites symbolically. Same-sex marriage destroys that aesthetic symbolism.

Phillip

Ahhhhh ahhahahaah the family research council? Bill if you would please do a little research about who wrote the “Myths” and the research that is quoted throughout you would get a little context on the matter.

It seems to me we should take the advice from the Family Research Council in matters relating to science in the same way we should take advice from the Ku Klux Klan on genetics. Its seems there is an ulterior motive in both. Anyway, have a good day and I hope to see you soon, either at the debate or at another meeting.

Maury

Homosexuality: Violation of Natural Law

Let us consider for a moment the simple basic natural function of sexual intercourse according to nature, procreation. The very nature of sex is to multiply a species which requires a male and a female. This is what is referred to simply as a natural law. Taken that way then anything outside the bounds of reproduction/procreation would be unnatural and therefore a violation of natural law i.e. homosexuality.

To be clear as Christians this DOES NOT give us the right to hate or be abusive towards the people that choose this lifestyle, to do so would also be a sin in the eyes of God. Mark 12:30-31;

30 And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. 31 The second is this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these.

This does not mean that we are to be tolerant either. Tolerance is turning a blind eye and not addressing the problem. God is clear on how he judges and deals with the immoral and depraved; one only has to look at how God dealt with Sodom and Gomorrah. Romans 1:22-32;

22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. 24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. 26 For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; 27 and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. 28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. 29 They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31 foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 Though they know God’s decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

Yes I get that sex is also fun, my wife and I rather enjoy it but it goes much deeper than the moment and is only appropriate within the bounds that God set for us. It is about a NATURAL relationship of two (MALE and FEMALE) becoming one flesh. This relationship is so important that an entire book of the Bible (Song of Solomon) was devoted to the subject.

Grace and peace to you,

Maury

http://tangenttalk.blogspot.com Rob

Raphael:

To your point 2 – I believe that the religions of Abraham cover over 50% of the world’s population, which considers homosexuality a sin. I’m curious where the Eastern philosophies stand. I have no idea.

To your point 3 – Would two gay people not be two wholes forming a new whole? I’ve been married and been to many weddings, so I know that your statement comes right from a Bible quote cited at most Christian weddings. I’m also curious how much opposition there is to homosexuality outside of those that are raised in a faith where it is considered a sin. I have no idea there either.

Raphael Wong

Phillip,

Right … the Huffington Post is the most objective source. Huffington is about as objective as Fox … only it slants in the other direction. Of course, you need a non-American to tell you that.

Maury,

your kind of passionate outburst is not going to help spur repentance or conversion in anybody. Such sermonizing – and lumpy quotes from the Bible – will not endear you to homosexuals or gay-rights activists, especially if they are atheists as well. (Atheists, especially American ones, have a cognitive bias against the Bible.)

http://tangenttalk.blogspot.com Rob

Maury,

As I mentioned in my other comment with regard to divorce, where is the utter outrage at premarital and extramarital sex? Why does homosexuality hold such a special place of deviance with Christians?

For those of us that are not Christians, the Bible is not the authority in matters like this (or any for that matter). It is not the authority of the U.S. government. Living your life according to the Bible is fine and potentially quite noble. However, since this is not a theocracy, freedom and liberty need be applied first and foremost.

Bill Pratt

Phillip,
Attacking the person who wrote the article does absolutely nothing to undermine the arguments made in the article. If a Ku Klux Klan member wrote an article about genetics, and that article was footnoted with scientific citations that anyone could go read for themselves, then his arguments would stand unless the article was misrepresenting the research (which is easy to check because of the citations).

It simply does not matter who the author is; what matters is whether their arguments withstand scrutiny. It’s a cop-out to attack the person who wrote the article. Deal with the arguments.

In addition, I have seen these same research results in other places from different sources, so it’s not like the author is saying anything new that hasn’t been said before.

Maury

Raphael,

A passionate outburst was not my intention so for that I apologize. How is speaking and providing the absolute truth sermonizing? Are we to shy away from and not stand on the truth of God’s word?

Grace and Peace,

Maury

Maury

Rob says:

“It is not the authority of the U.S. government. Living your life according to the Bible is fine and potentially quite noble. However, since this is not a theocracy, freedom and liberty need be applied first and foremost.”

Rob,

You are correct that we do not live in a theocracy however you are somewhat incorrect that our government was not founded on biblical principles. You should check the history or our founding fathers and documents as I am sure you will find otherwise. Specifically from the Declaration of Independence – “certain inalienable rights endowed by the Creator…” 

Grace and Peace,

Maury

Bill Pratt

Rob,
You said, “As I mentioned in my other comment with regard to divorce, where is the utter outrage at premarital and extramarital sex? Why does homosexuality hold such a special place of deviance with Christians?”

This is a good question, but it has nothing to do with whether our state should promote the gay lifestyle. It’s like standing out in front of a legislative assembly that just passed a law against theft, and saying, “Why are you spending time on theft when you should be passing laws against murder and rape!”

This is not an either/or question. We do not deal with gay marriage or everything else; we must deal with all of them.

With regard to divorce and extramarital sex, the church I belong to spends infinitely more time on those subjects than gay marriage – and I belong to one of those “backward” conservative evangelical churches. Divorce is a serious problem, as is extramarital relations. We talk about these things frequently and will continue to.

The reason that folks like me talk about gay marriage at all (I have written 6 posts on this topic out of 343) is because there is an organized and powerful movement in our country which is trying to get laws passed which normalize and promote the gay lifestyle (gay marriage being the crown jewel of that effort). We are forced to speak out, not because we like to, but because one of our fundamental beliefs is being challenged. We cannot just sit by and watch it unfold without trying to stop it. Believe me, I would much rather spend my time on other things than this.

http://tangenttalk.blogspot.com Rob

Maury – I didn’t say anything about the country being founded on or by Christians one way or the other. I said that the Bible is not the authority of this land. When it becomes the authority, we will then have a Christian theocracy.

Phillip

Raphael,

I’m not saying that Huffington Post doesn’t have a slant or that the author doesn’t have one. However, I have not seen them butcher science in the way the Family Research Council routinely does.

Bill,

It absolutely does matter who wrote the article, because if an organization tries to put their slant on science then it is not science. The FRC has a worldview and a conclusion already, and then they picks small things out of a large and detailed report to go with that worldview. Just as all good science does not start with a conclusion, they are no different. This is basic stuff in the scientific method. You can have no presuppositions.

The FRC has a worldview and presuppositions based on the Bible.
They cannot write a paper about science and have it be taken seriously.

Quote these other places. Show me this other research and I will deal with that.

Later

Phillip

Maury

I completely agree with Bill. I spend a lot of my own time in my own church and community battling the struggles with extramarital sex and specifically addictions to pornography. Rob there are myriad problems within the church and society against which we must stand and lovingly resist. I am equally passionate about them as well.

Grace and Peace,

Maury

Bill Pratt

Philip,
Everyone has presuppositions, even you! You presuppose that anything written by a person who believes the Bible can’t be trusted. I guess I should dismiss everything you say, then, about Christianity, because you are biased. Is that the way you want to argue?

If anyone with presuppositions could not write about science, then nobody could write about science. Would you be willing to say that anything Richard Dawkins writes about evolution is bogus as well? His presuppositions are well known. Stephen Jay Gould, one of the preeminent paleontologists of the 20th century had strong atheistic presuppositions. Should we throw his work out?

This line of reasoning just does not work. You have to deal with the arguments.

http://tangenttalk.blogspot.com Rob

Bill/Maury – your religion says that homosexuality is a sin. Homosexuals beg to differ. I am heterosexual and, even though raised in this Christian culture of ours, do NOT consider homosexuality a sin or deviant behavior. Abnormal? Sure, but only in the sense that a small minority of people are that way.

Raphael Wong

Rob,

(1) I do think that the number of Abrahamic Faith adherents is more than 50% and growing as well. On Eastern Religions, Chinese Confucian tradition opposes same-sex intercourse; In the Classics, it is ranked worse than incest. Hinduism generally frowns on it as well, although there are some fringe sects which approve of it. Buddhism is divided over it, namely because Buddha banned same-sex relations for Buddhist clergy, but apparently made no comments about “lay” Buddhists. I personally am on the side on those who say Buddhism is negative towards homosexuality, because I don’t think Buddhism was formulated to have a clerfy/laity distinction. I don’t know much about Shintoism, but then the Japanese don’t seem to be gay-friendly by default. Japanese anime tends to put gay sex under the Hentai cluster. Hentai is spelled in Japanese with two Chinese characters whose meaning is “pervert”.

(2) Half an apple plus half a pear does not make either a full apple or a full pear, or a full set of fruits. Homosexuals adopt the labels they do as a compensation for feelings of inadequacy. Admittedly, the feelings of inadequacy might be amplified by society, but it takes two hands to clap.

I want to clarify here that I am not slighting LGBT (I and the Qs are another matter) people. Everyone feels inadequate in various areas. Some truly homophobic bullying may be because the bullies feel that their faith is inadequate, and they compensate by knocking down other people’s self-esteem. That is assuredly un-Christian.

On the other hand, the labels of L, G, B, T are means to internalize an inadequacy, whatever the specific target may be. It’s always “I must be … but I cannot … “. The proper Christian response should be “You don’t have to be … , but you can …, and that’s why you should. Somehow, the last part tends to predominate over the first two parts.

http://tangenttalk.blogspot.com Rob

Philllip – I was about to take exception to the “presupposition” part, but only because I thought it would get misconstrued.

Bill – Obviously a hypothesis is an educated guess, which is effectively a presupposition. However, the key part is that once you test the hypothesis and come up with a positive result, it has to undergo extensive peer review and is always under scrutiny.

Scientists get blinded all the time by their own presuppositions and that’s where they make mistakes. Eventually, if not quickly, this is rooted out by other scientists.

Bill Pratt

Rob,
A clarification. I do not consider homosexual desires a sin. I consider homosexual acts a sin. Big difference. In the same way, some heterosexuals have a very strong sex drive – not a sin – but if they act on that drive illegitimately (outside of marriage), that’s a sin.

As Raphael pointed out, it is the overwhelming consensus of all societies going back thousands of years that homosexual acts are wrong. The modern western civilization’s gay-friendly view is a big outlier compared to all other societies in the world today and throughout history. Please do not think that it is only evangelicals or Roman Catholics who think this way. That is not factually correct.

http://tangenttalk.blogspot.com Rob

We’ve obviously run the course on this one. I think it’s time for me to step out of this on the “agree to disagree” side. I’ve made my point and you guys have made yours.

Bill, since I’m new to commenting on your blog, my main point of commenting isn’t to try to change anybody’s mind, but to make them aware of the other opinions … and to learn what they believe and why. I used to try to change peoples’ minds, but I found out that it was generally futile.

When I comment, I certainly don’t ever intend any disrespect to your views, so take my comments with that in mind if I ever tick you off.

Raphael Wong

Hmm Rob,

I thought we had just started the discussion. Don’t leave so soon … really.

Bill Pratt

Rob,
You have been a pleasure to interact with and you are welcome back any time.

God bless,
Bill

http://tangenttalk.blogspot.com Rob

Raphael – what else is there to say? The only thing I might find interesting is if there’s a place for common ground.

How about this… regardless of how any of us feel, I think this is a done deal. It may not happen in six months, but if it takes more than a decade I’ll be shocked. What impact will it have?

I will say this – the push for gay adoption is coming right on the heels of gay marriage. I’m not sure what would be next. I suppose a Constitutional amendment to add “sexual orientation” to the list of “race and gender”.

Maury

Raphael,

Thank you for your comments and for helping to refocus my sight back on Christ

Rob,

I agree with your comment about wanting people to consider others opinions and beliefs and not judge them outright. We are to be slow to listen, slow to anger, and quick to hear and by all means act graciously in the love of Christ.

I have recently started taking seminary classes on theology that are built on the idea of “Irenic” theology or theology done peacefully. I used to be much more polemic, but I am trying! I hope that you will not bow out of the discussions either.

Grace and Peace,

Maury

http://tangenttalk.blogspot.com Rob

Maury – I wasn’t bowing out in terms of frustration. We just hit the circular part of a discussion.

Maury

Raphael says:

The proper Christian response should be “You don’t have to be … , but you can …, and that’s why you should.

Absolutely! However the proper Christian position is to stand firm on the truth of God’s word which is the revelation of Jesus Christ to the world and then allow the Holy Spirit to work out the change in the individual. In this present world it is even more critical, I believe that we stand on “The Truth” period. I am not ashamed of the Gospel…

Grace and Peace,

Maury

Raphael Wong

Rob,

(1) Sometimes, clarifying differences may lead two to realize that there are many more similarities than differences. Plus, I am into dialectic.

(2) It’s not necessarily a done deal. The Ninth-Circuit has after all decided to stay gay marriage in California before the conclusion of the Prop 8 trial in October. So apparently, they find some merit in the Prop 8 people’s appeal. And of course, the Supreme Court has yet to rule on any Same-Sex Marriage case.

Until then, it is not a done deal.

In fact, even after then, it is not a done deal. Supreme Court decisions have been known to contradict each other; If you are an American, you should know that better than me.

And even after it is a done deal in the USA, it is not a done deal in more than 130 countries around the world, including in the world’s next superpower, China. And if China is really serious about promoting Confucian values, same-sex marriage will be the last item on its agenda.

Amendments to the US Constitution do not affect China.

http://tangenttalk.blogspot.com Rob

Raphael – I was speaking in the United States only. I didn’t actually realize we had a global-wide participation in the discussion.

I don’t consider it a done deal because of the Prop 8 case. I just think, meaning this is my opinion, that gay marriage will be legal in the United States within 10 years. I won’t predict which avenue allows it, although I strongly suspect it will be through the courts.

http://tangenttalk.blogspot.com Rob

So if it comes to fruition, what impact will it have?

Maury

Rob I’ll take a stab at that.

It will simply take us one step further down the road of moral decline. Without an absolute moral giver “God”, morals are no longer absolute.

Grace and Peace,

Maury

Phillip

Bill,

Sorry it has taken me so long to respond. I can admit that of course I have presuppositions about the world, but I am pretty sure this is not one of them. I am going to try to explain what I mean about this whole thing, and hopefully it won’t be misconstrued.

If I were to look at the scientific data that comes out, like the data from Sprigg, then I do not see the same things as the FRC did because I do not have a slant that homosexuality is a sin. I believe that it is a natural part of life and a response to the overpopulation that is currently an issue on earth. When populations get too large new diseases (AIDS, different forms of cancer, swine flu, et cenera) develop to try to control the population. This seems logical from a nature standpoint that homosexuality would develop in this way to control the population of humans on earth. It happens in communities of other animals so why would humans be any different?

So, that’s my theory. Maybe it can be tested and maybe it cannot be tested, but the difference is that I am not blaming the person for this and taking research out of context to meet my political and religious goals of what this society should be in like in America. There is currently about 10 countries in the world where same sex marriage is legal.

So, what scientific data is acceptable in my mind? Let’s take some place like the Institute for Creation Research, and compare them to somewhere like ohhh UNCG’s department of Anthropology. UNCG has a standard that they are held to and they can’t just make things up and come up with theories. ICR doesn’t have such a standard and even if they did they have actively said hundreds of time that they are looking for evidence of a creator. ID has been struck down by the courts and called non-science yet they still think it is viable and believe it is something more than re-braded Creationism or watered down theology. This is why if they were to come out with new research saying they found Noah’s Ark that I would be a little skeptical, but if UNCG’s department of Anthroplogy went on a dig and found a new type of human in the fossil record I would have no problem accepting the science.

It is not about presuppositions, it is about who is trustworthy based on what they’ve done in the past and what they continue to do. One organization looks for truth (without having conclusions drawn out) and the other organization looks for things to back up their worldview (having already come up with the conclusions).

Have a good day,

Phillip

Raphael Wong

Phillip,

(1) I’ll ignore this, because I am unsure of what you are referring to.

(2) The question here is : Is it that you disagree with their data or with their interpretation of the data? Because I have read through a number of Queer-studies articles. And although I am in no place to comment on their data-gathering, I realize that even based on their own data, I can emerge with a different conclusion.

It’s not the science that is a problem; it is how the science is read.

Your explanation is problematic. Evolution starts off by noting the competition between each and every organism. Diseases are caused by viruses and bacteria. Bacteria follow the laws of natural selection. If Bacteria cause homosexuality, then there is something allowing the bacteria to thrive. Viruses are a problem because they are not really living things. In other words, diseases are not organisms that operate according to the laws of survival-of-the-fittest; they are realtionships that develop when somehow parasites become the strongest.

Evolution’s solution to overpopulation is – by effect of law – either predation (because the population can no longer protect all of its members) or starvation (because there is insufficient food). Homosexuality involves neither. So no, homosexuality is not a homeostatic mechanism.

Homosexual behaviour allegedly occurs in animals, but proof of this is not forthcoming, because we lack an in-depth knowledge of animal psyches. It is quite possible that what is merely territorial behaviour is being mistaken for same-sex relations by over-zealous gay activists. I would say that that is true even for the famous Emperor-Penguin couple; the hostilities to the zookeepers represented as gay love might simply be territorial behaviour to safeguard the child.

(4) That’s a bias, eh? Besides, I am curious as to why courts should have a role in deciding what is science. I apologize; I am not American; please educate me.

http://tangenttalk.blogspot.com Rob

Phillip – I’m not sure I get the overpopulation argument either. It did get me thinking about how homosexuality pops up in the concept of natural selection. I did a quick search and came up this this article. I found it to be an interesting explanation.

Raphael – Courts don’t get to decide what’s science other than to settle cases between public entities and private individuals with regard to the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. For example, if the Genesis version of Creation is being taught in science class (or is being adopted by a school board for the curriculum), someone can sue the public school system. Both sides get to have their say in court and the court would rule on whether it is a violation of the First Amendment.

Maury

Phillip,

Form what I understand the position of the ICR is not to demand that creationism be taught but rather they want to be able to engage in peer reviewed journals and intellectual dialogues about the possibility of creationism. The mainstream science will not even entertain such a dialogue; they immediately slam the door and cling to evolution as the only viable possibility.

Rob,

At the moment (at least in Oklahoma) if a student asks a question about ID or creationism then the teacher can engage in the discussion if they choose. Where the courts come in is when a parent of another student hears of this discussion they hire an attorney and sue the school for violating their rights to not have to hear or discuss religion in public schools.

It greatly frustrates me because we cannot violate a muslim, wiccan, hindi, etc students rights by saying that he cannot pray/meditate and openly discuss their beliefs during school but it is not ok for Christian student to do the same in school because he is violating everyone else’s rights.

Same goes for homosexuals. It is okay to espouse your beliefs openly but the minute a Christian says anything about what they believe they get drug into court for a civil rights violation.

Grace and Peace,

Maury

Maury

sorry Rob that second comment was for Raphael.

Bill Pratt

Phillip,
Have you discovered past research that the Family Research Council manipulated or falsified in some way? Why don’t you trust them?

Raphael Wong

Maury,

(1) I am not American, so I don’t have a clear idea of what is going on in Oklahoma, or any other state except those that frequently appear in the international media e.g. New York, Texas.

(2) I am not criticising you here – I am a Catholic, after all – but the concern seems to be that the other groups do not do evangelisation and conversion.

(3) I agree – that is unfair. That seems to be increasingly the case in the UK as well …

Phillip,

(1) It seems that the article from New Scientist – which is atrociously liberal publication by the way – more or less says that homosexual relationships is a strategy to get opposite-sex mates. This indicates that the underlying “orientation” is still heterosexual.

(2) I see. But how do you know that the judges aren’t biased? (A separate question from whether they are corrupt.) It seems that in American courts, whichever side – plaintiff or defendant – which loses will argue that the judge was an “activist judge”. I see that as one of the major flaws of the American political system – the lack of an independent manner to determine whether a judge is “activist” or not.

Boz

Shame on you, Bill Pratt, for broadcasting this deceitful propaganda.

I hope that you come to realise the hurt that you are indirectly inflicting upon others.

http://tangenttalk.blogspot.com Rob

To the points about Christians in the public schools, I actually have a lot of sympathy for the position they are in. Freedom of religion is not freedom from religion. I don’t envy the position that a lot of teachers are in. I also don’t necessarily trust their judgment to openly discuss religion in the classroom, even when asked. Where I live, Christians are generally much more fundamentalist in nature, so I’d be hesitant to give them a long leash. I’m also less sympathetic within a science curriculum. In other areas, though, I find it ridiculous that one of the (if not the) most influential books in the history of mankind is practically a taboo in our schools. Forget how I feel about its truth in the realm of the supernatural, it is an extremely significant book in Western culture.

Raphael – to the point of judges: This is why we have a fairly complex appeals system. Ultimately, it can’t go any further than the U.S. Supreme Court. Once they’ve ruled, it’s final. That doesn’t mean we don’t get bias – we get it all the time. There are some checks and balances though. The Congress has the ability to clarify laws that have been ruled unconstitutional by the court system. A lot of the time, the courts will strike down portions of a law only.

In the case of gay marriage, they wouldn’t be ruling on whether it’s right or wrong as much as whether the law is being followed. People get confused sometimes that when the court makes a decision, it doesn’t necessarily reflect their feeling about it, but their interpretation of the law and the Constitution.

They are also very careful which cases they choose to hear because they understand that there is no appeal after they’ve ruled. In fact, it becomes the official interpretation of the Constitution in many cases. This is why they are often said to be making laws from the bench. A judge, particularly a Supreme Court justice, can overstep their role. That’s what people will call an “activist judge”.

The American system is far from perfect, but it’s not bad either.

Bill Pratt

Boz,
Your comment is a perfect example of what happens to people who dare to write anything at all critical of the gay marriage movement. I did not attack anybody in the post, nor did I intend to hurt anyone. Why is this issue off-limits for rational discussion? Why must we all walk on eggshells when it comes to discussing the homosexual lifestyle?

Your comment does nothing but shut down dialogue and attempt to declare this issue off limits to anyone who disagrees with you. You should be ashamed, not me.

Raphael Wong

Boz,

Your comment works well in some contexts … and poorly in others. It works well on Questioning Blogs and Atheist blogs; not going to work as well on an apologetics blog.

Incidentally, I am curious to know: which country do you come from?

Rob,

(1) I am (naturally) more sympathetic to the non-extremist teachers in other countries – including my own – that get caught by the fallout from America. People influenced by American leftwing ideologies – like gay rights – tend to transplant American society onto their own country’s culture. Because the Catholic League might be part of the Religious Right in the USA doesn’t mean that the entire (conservative) Catholic Church in the whole world is part of the Religious Right; and certainly doesn’t mean that Benedict XVI himself is part of the Religious Right!

As for science, I am not against evolution, but I am against evolution being bandied around to shut down theological discussion. Science textbooks are a grey area. On one hand, their main content should be empirical facts. On the other hand, there needs to be some portion that talks about science and its relation to society, and that portion needs to be objective and reflect a variety of views. What the New Atheists / Liberal Left are doing in the USA, Europe and elsewhere, are trying to clamp down or derogate mention of the religious view in the first place. Because they tried to do that, the Religious Right rose up with its over-literal literal interpretation of the Bible, which also takes Scripture out of context. Not going to speak further, because this is not the thread.

Plus, the Bible is not only important for Western Culture. It is important for Middle Eastern Culture as well. How people who junk the Bible intend to solve the Middle East Crisis is beyond me. Yes, the Mid-East Crisis is not primarily due to religion, but to know how religion is being abused, you need to understand both Judaism and Islam first. Judaism is directly related to the Bible; Islam considers itself partially as a reformation of Christianity. The reason why the West is unable to solve the Israel-Palestine conflict is because it has junked its own heritage.

(2) In the case of Perry vs Swarzenegger, it appears that either the law is upheld in its entirety, or scrapped entirely. I am not sure how a partial amendment would work on that one. Clearly, Judge Walker wasn’t intending on a partial amendment either.

(3) Technically, yes, the ruling is only a procedural matter. The problem, however, is that Americans regard the Constitution as being morally-binding; that is why the pro-gay lobby wants so hard to have gay marriage constitutionalized.

(4) Agreed. Well, I am hoping – although I am not an American – that the Supreme Court will find a loophole in Judge Walker’s arguments, so that at most it only makes a partial amendment.

(5) I don’t think that the American system is totally flawed; just that it has a few significant weaknesses.

Jack

I always wonder how many LGBT people were ACTUALLY included in these research studies.

Reply to the Top Ten Myths about “Homosexuality” from a Gay’s point of view:

1. Funny enough,

2. Sexual orientation can’t be changed. Three years of “counseling” and “prayer” did nothing for me, nor any other person I know who has tried to be “cured.” Just because you convince yourself you are straight doesn’t mean you are-which takes me to the next “myth.”

3. If a white person convinced themself they were Asian, you would think there was something wrong with them, wouldn’t you? I would venture to say if a gay person convinces themself they are straight, the same concept applies. But it isn’t an obvious error to the naked eye. Trying to be “cured” did have a very negative impact on my life. I was never suicidal or depressed before those three years and [once I actually recovered from being screwed up because of people like yourself] having been depressed and suicidal since. Watch Prayers for Bobby. It’s a true story and if you still think that trying to “cure” people of their sexual orientation doesn’t have a negative effect you are a pretty sick person who no one can reason with.

4. That statistic is a flat out lie. You can get on Google and find the real statistics. And I would like everyone to take note of the method Bill used here: 10 % of the population is gay, but then goes to say only 3 % of American adults are “homosexual.” No one said that 10 % was just American adults.

5. Yes, they do when they have to sit there listening to their priests, rabbis, pastors, parents and piers condemn then and live in a society that wishes to strip them of their rights. I think I can attest for my own mental state-of-being and I’m pretty well off. So are the other gay people I know. No, that’s not entirely true. I did have a friend in HS whose parents took to beating him on a regular basis after they found out he was gay. So after a few years of living in paradise he did try to kill himself

6. False. I’m seeing a consistent theme here of you not having any proof to back up your accusatoins. The most likely victims for AIDS now are straight college and middle-aged women.

8. Where’s the evidence? Don’t say you don’t judge gay people but then make up flat out lies like that.

9. I would say that living in a country where A. you are treated as a second class citizen B. you can’t legally get married C. if you are in a state where you have a civil union your spouses will can be over-run when they die counts as being subject to discrimination.

10. Again, where’s the proof? Do you see how you’re contradicting yourself here? 50% of male/female marriages end in divorce, but they’re still allowed to marry. http://www.divorcerate.org/

Bill, you make several references to the “homosexual lifestyle.” Do you care to explain me what the “homosexual lifestyle” is?

Jack

I see I didn’t finish my first point. Out of seven major psychiatric institutions in this country, only two claim that homosexuality is a choice and can be cured. Ironically both are affiliated with religious organizations that frown upon homosexuality.

Raphael Wong

Jack,

(1) And apparently, the converse is true too. How many non-LGBT people were included in studies sponsored by “gay-affirmative” organizations e.g. Stonewall?

(2) Reply to your replies:-

(pre) How do you know that you are really gay?

(a) Strange; I only heard of two. What are the other 5? (Forgive me, I am not an American.)

(b) Well, I would argue that you are neither. My contention would be that sexual orientation is an imaginary characteristic, created by a group of deviant social rebels, who then normalized it for people with a genuine problem of “fitting in” through Ad Misericordiam Appeal, and then asserted force on prominent medical associations.

(c) Well, you have Mike Jackson.

In any case, it depends on how you define “Asian” as well. There are many ways of being Asian that are detached from skin colour. Well, I would venture that the gay hadn’t really convinced himself that he was “straight”.

I don’t know what Prayers for Bobby is, but I suppose it is nothing but a propaganda film. Anyway, Hollywood isn’t generally objective in these matters.

You were never suicidal or depressed? I would again contend that that is because you repressed these feelings of depression. I know – not a PC view in the west, but it is a logical explanation. Something like selective amnesia. And your “curative” program brought this out. Unfortunately, they didn’t deal with it properly, so you ended up feeling suicidal. So the suicidal is their fault; the depression isn’t.

(d) 10% was a fictitive statistic to begin with. That was proven in 1979. Non-religious academics pointed out that the method used to estimate the 10% was highly flawed. The current estimation for the USA is 3%; for the world it is 1%.

You are the one who is peddling a flat out lie.

(e) Not true. Or well, about 5% is true; the rest is victim-complex. Mere criticism of behaviour, no matter how harsh, is not bullying or “stripping of rights”. Banning such criticism for the sake of “equality” is, though.

(f) Maybe that is true in the USA. Not so in my country, in India, in China, in Japan and in at least 50 other countries. Stop being so Americocentric!

(g) Yes, the Independent. Britain’s most objective Newspaper. Give a break man! I read that article. The research study is flawed from head to tail.

(h) Here’s one possible evidence: In the recent paedophile scandal in the Roman Catholic Church, the 96% of child-molesting priests self-identified as homosexuals.

(i) Really? What is defined as “over-run”? Besides, everyone gets to write wills, so what’s the problem? Sometimes the logic of activists really befuddles me.

(j) It is provided in the article by FRC that Bill has summarized his points from. Why don’t you read the original article in full before commenting?

(k) That should be self-explanatory to anyone involved in this debate. Although, personally I disapprove of this label, since homosexuality is to narrow a phenomenon to qualify as a lifestyle. Still, Gay bars, Gay Pride and Drag Queens could be considered components of a “lifestyle” connected with homosexuality.

bobo chango

Here’s a prophecy: Gays will be able to marry in every state within the next 20 years. Heed this message because I am speaking the word of God.

Maury

bobo – I have all the respect and love for my neighbors as Jesus Christ lives through me, BUT I must point out that it is very dangerous for ANYONE to mock our Father God. I pray Father God will extend grace and that you will seek forgiveness from Him and know the true love of Jesus Christ and what He sacraficed for you on through His crucifixtion, death, and resurection.

Boz

Raphael, I live in australia.

Anyone who published a deceitful article like the one on this page, in a major news outlet in australia, would be fired.

Bobo – If I am boasting then my boasting is what Jesus Christ has done for and through me and only points to Him; I must decrease that He can increase. But that is not the point. There is not one place in “God’s Word” that supports homosexuality. If prophecy does not agree with “God’s Word” it is false prophecy and not to given any merit nor feared. Those are not my words. Read Deuteronomy 18:20-22.

Grace and peace,

Maury

bobo chango

Maury I don’t mean boasting. Rather, excessive confidence that you know what is correct because you believe the Bible, or at least your interpretation of the Bible, is correct.

If God came and spoke to you directly and told you certain parts of the Bible were incorrect becasue the men who wrote it misinterpreted God’s meaning, would you believe God or continue to believe in those sections of the Bible?

Raphael Wong

bobo chango,

At least there is one verse that we can all interpret properly:-

“Before you remove the splinter in your brother’s eye, remove the plank in your own eye.”

Maury does need to be a little more humble, but so do you. If God came and spoke to you directly and told you that certain parts of the Bible were 100% correct despite the writers’ lack of historical or scientific knowledge, would you believe God or continue to believe the skeptics?

Maury,

as for you, pls remember Paul’s phrase “without love I am nothing”.

Boz,

That doesn’t mean that the news outlet is right in doing so. I read the article at the link. My opinion? Some people are just being over-sensitive. Although it does show one thing about the gay rights movement too – gay rights “Struggles” have turned into witch-hunts for “offenders”. Someone needs to remind them: hey, you don’t have the right NOT to be offended.

Double standards, when you consider that the love levelling that exact same charge against blasphemy laws. Hmm … Like I told bobo above, “Remove the plank in your own eye before you remove the splinter in your brother’s/sister’s/neighbour’s eyes.”

Ah well … guess the West is not perfect either. I am Singaporean, btw.

bobo chango

Good point, Raphael. Let us all remove our planks.

Let the churches who want to ban gay marriage ban it. Let the churches who choose to marry gays do so. Let’s respect each other’s religous perspectives in the spirit of freedom of religion and democracy.

Maury

Raphael – You are absolutely correct, I do need to be more humble and exercise humility. Thank you and God bless you.

Bobo – The plank and splinter reference is correct, we are not to judge others as that is God’s work. However we are not judging when we point to the truth of scripture as the example of how to live as Jesus Christ. We become judgemental (plank in our eye) when we say live as I live. As to the infalibility of scripture I am sure that Bill Prat covers that in another part of his blog. I don’t want to get to far off topic here.

Grace and Peace,

Maury

bobo chango

Maury,

I know you are convinced your yardstick, the Bible, or your interpretation of it is correct, but not everyone does. When you use it to tell others how they should live their lives you indeed are judging. You say you are not judging simply applying the word of God. Well, anyone can do that using their interpretaion of God and their interpretation of his will. Like it or not, you are judging.

bobo chango

Why not let gays marry and let God judge them?

Raphael Wong

bobo chango,

That is removing planks … superficially. What we need to do is instantiate a dialogue between both sides. We don’t need more segregation or “safe zones”. Modernity must not isolate tradition, and so as well vice versa.

And yes, we ought to respect each other’s religious perspectives (or non-religious ones), except of course the “mutual” respect seems always biased towards the liberal side. I have no doubt that one of the reasons why Bill wrote this article was because a particular group of people are looking to exclude the traditional religious view from the curriculum in public schools, or include it in a derogatory fashion. What happened to the “respect” to other’s religious perspectives in that case?

As Boz clearly indicated, this traditional view is being treated as – not merely regarded as – bigotry and he regards Bill’s article as “deceitful”. Is that respectful of this particular perspective? I think not.

“All” includes you too, IMHO.

Raphael Wong

bobo,

And the same thing applies to you. Remove your own planks first, remember?

Raphael Wong

bobo chango,

Well, for a few reasons:-

(1) Everyone is being judged on how they help others, in addition to how they live their own lives. Sins of omission are as bad as sins of commission. If homosexuality is a disordered/sinful orientation, then it is the responsibility of a Christian to help remove it.

The problem is … many Christians are not removing it successfully, because instead of reaching out the tow-rope, they are dangling a fishing hook. Incidentally, Jesus meant fishing with a net, not fishing with a hook.

(2) Gay marriage and the promotion of the “rightness” of it affects society. Promoting it marginalizes those holding the opposite opinion, because suddenly non-inciteful criticism becomes labelled as “hate speech”; the bullied become the bullies.

Gay marriage itself affects the families of the gay couple and any children they wish to adopt or birth. Couples function within larger contexts; a couple is not an island; apart from a tiny “sexual” space, there isn’t any other space that is really private.

Because GL couples cannot reproduce using their own body functions, they either have to adopt or go through artifical insemination (for Lesbians).

Without caring about “flaky” emotional stuff, the latter materially forcibly deprives the child and one of its biological parents from meeting each other. Yes, foster parents can be just as good, but why have a substitute when you can have the original? The child isn’t given the choice in the situation.

The former has attached to it much rhetoric on parental rights, while society has forgotten why it exists in the first place. Adoption exists so that a child with no parents or whose parents are unable to take care of it in the first place may find a loving home, not so that any two or more random individuals can bundle together and purchase the child as a possession. The Gay Adoption debate has muddled up the rights of the child with the rights of the parent. More importantly, it masks the responsibility that we have from preventing such catastrophes from occurring in the first place.

(3) The “Comprehensive” Sex Education debate is flawed on exactly the same grounds as the adoption debate. Apart from an inordinate focus on birth-control (why is pregnancy a “risk”?), the right of the parent – as the trustee of the child – to choose the best education path is hijacked by the left-wing agenda of the gay movement.

Maury

Bobo – By pointing others to the truth of God’s word is not judgement. It becomes judgement when I (or anyone else) hold ourselves as better than them for not following God’s Word. When we point someone to the Truth of God’s Word then it is between them and God as to how they receive it. Only God can change a persons heart. I cannot and unfortunately to many people that call them selves Christians today think that it is up to them to change people. We are to be a light to the world planting the seeds of truth. It is the Father that produces the growth and prunes (changes) the vine that grows.

Grace and Peace,

Maury

bobo chango

That sounds great, Maury. I was under, I guess, the false impression that you would be in favor of laws that would prevent churches– other than your own –from marrying gay couples. I appreciate your support of freedom of religion.

Maury

Bobo – I am glad that came through clearly! It is very difficult to convey emotion in email and blog comments and so often something ment to be gentle and respectfull can come across as crass and disrespectful.

I do not supprot laws defining marraige or any other law that any level of government uses to guide or direct how we live our live e.g. california’s ban on toys in happy meals. Rediculous.

The problem is we (Christians) need to get back to understanding the difference between being judegmental and lovingly and gently holding someone accountable by pointing them to the truth. Period. And as they say “let God sort them out”.

According to constitutoional freedom of religion guaranteed by the first amendment we (Christians) must be allowed to peacefully, loveingly and freely express our beliefs. We just want the opportunity to be a part of the dialouge as opposed to having the door immediately slammed in our face and called closed minded bigots.

Grace and Peace,

Maury

bobo chango

Sounds good, Maury.

I enjoyed our conversation.

Maury

This may be a bit off topic but could we some how reveal this discussion to the WHOLE world!!! This is what we all need to learn… CIVIL DISCOURSE!!! Bobo and I have differing viewpoints and yet we managed to NOT blow up one, the other or both!

Grace and Peace,

Maury

Maury

Bobo and all of you – Thank you as well, I have thoroughly enjoyed it!

Raphael Wong

Wow Maury,

beware of a subtle slide into hubris/arrogance. Pride after all comes before a/The Fall. (And is one of the 7 Deadly Sins to boot.)

Bryan

Wow, you say you are interested in intellectual discussion and yet you post inaccurate information. The Family Research Council is horribly biased. Have you tried referencing the American Medical Association (AMA) or the American Psychological Association (APA)? The bible is not a health science textbook, it is the historical writings of some men.

Raphael

Bryan,

I don’t know about Bill or Maury or Bobo, but I have read the stuff on the APA’s website. Outside of its publicity material, its actual opinion on homosexuality is rather sanguine. There is no deafening endorsement of genetic origin of homosexuality, for instance, mostly acknowledgement of indeterminacy over the issue.

Basically, there is a disconnect between the APA’s information sheets – more technical, more formal and more accurate – and the APA’s publicity material. The publicity material takes a stronger stance on issues than the information sheets, not to mention the research papers.

So if you are only looking at the publicity material, then it is probably no less biased than what you think the FRC is. So get off your secularist high horse and take a look at the forest around; you might be surprised at what you find.

Sorry to be a bit brusque here, but I am tired of people posting on websites going: The FRC/FOTF etc etc are biased and inaccurate, and go against the APA and Stonewall. Well, yes, FOTF and FRC’s opinion would definitely conflict with Stonewall’s; but really, you guys think that Stonewall doesn’t twist information at all? (How naive.) And the APA – well, its publicity section kow-tows to the gay lobby, but not its proper medical research divisions. Same probably goes for the AMA and the other APA (American Psychiatric Association). Yes, I also know of the supposedly long list of groups that endorsed the 1973 “change-of-mind”; scrutinizing the list carefully, it is obvious that almost all are likely to have some vested self-interest in making their own jobs simpler, which instantly makes the endorsement biased.

The Bible is not a health science textbook, but it records the moral wisdom of some men, wisdom that doesn’t deserve to be chucked away in the name of progress.

Walter Webb

Your argument about adult men who molest boys being mostly gay or bisexual is obviously true, and admittedly so. What you conveniently ignore is that the vast majority of all molestation is committed by adult males onto girls! By your logic, heterosexuality would be condemnable due to it’s aberrant form.

Bryan

Raphael, the AMA and APA sites do not come out and say that Homosexuality is something that you are born with because it hasn’t been proven yet. A lot of the research suggests that there is a genetic component but the issue overall is unresolved.

Most Psychiatrists (whether behavioral or genetic) agree that sexual orientation is baked by the age of two. The difference between them and the FRC is that the FRC says that is has been proven that people are not born gay. Really? Where is their scientific research to be reviewed?

That is not a secular high horse, it is critical thinking. Sure Stonewall would be biased, but I didn’t mention them did I? You can follow the “moral wisdom” of men from the 1st century if you like but you better not get caught owning slaves . . .

Yoo

The Family Research Council is bias to Christianity which taints their whole study considering what Christianity teaches on homosexuality. A different example of this would be conversion therapies which have made the claim to change their client’s sexual orientation from homosexual to heterosexual. Close scrutiny reveal that these claims come from organizations with an ideological perspective condemning homosexuality. Also that the claims were poorly documented & treatment outcome was not followed and reported overtime as would be the standard. So it’s not not a leap to think research from this council is tainted or refutable. Psychologists, psychiatrists, and many mental health professionals agree homosexuality is not an illness, mental disorder, or emotional problem, not associated with social problems, nor can it be treated. Objective research from scientists & scholars show orientation is a complex combination of genetic, biological, and inborn hormonal factors in the early uterine environment all together. There is no one determining factor. Sexual orientation is also not considered to be a conscious choice that can be voluntarily changed. Based on studies & research behavior can be changed, but not orientation, nor will behavior change orientation.

Raphael

Bryan,

(1) Yes, it hasn’t been proven yet; that is the point. But you got it wrong too: there is in most likelihood a genetic component; what is the topic of hot debate is how affective that genetic component is. It is whether genes are a blueprint or whether genes are a determinant.

(2) They do? Or do you just mean the “most psychiatrists” who are shown on CBS and ABC and CNN?

As for the FRC, I thought the same thing as you did (and I am a Christian) until I read their material. No, they do not say that it has been proven that people are not gay; that is the propaganda of Stonewall and its cohorts. What they ACTUALLY say is that there is a stronger correlation between behavioural/lifestyle/environmental factors and homosexuality than there is between genetic factors and homosexuality.

They say that the Gay Lobby has not proved its case decisively, and yet has gained an unfair political advantage to silence their critics. Which I think is an absolutely valid point.

And FYI, they do provide bilbiographies, and references in their material. So you can go and check them out. Of course, if you are friends of people in Stonewall, they might not want you to … but hey, you said you will not mention them, yeah?

(3) critical thinking is not dismissive the way you were. In fact, dismissiveness is inimical to critical thinking. Your reference to the slaves commits the Fallacy of Division, incidentally:-

i. 1st-century debt slaves operated under a different system than 19th-century chattel slaves. So firstly, you committed a category error.

ii. You have no evidence to show that the specific writers of the Bible owned slaves (by choice) or endorsed slavery as an ideal form. In fact, the reverse is true. Deuteronomy contains strong restrictions on slavery; although often misquoted, Paul did not endorse the slavery of Onesimius; what he said was – to paraphrase in modern English – “I am now sending back to you the man who was once your slave, I hope you will treat him as if he were your brother instead” which is a far cry from endorsing the institution of debt slavery.

iii. Well, yes, we can correct them in some details, but we don’t need to throw away the painting for the sake of a blemish. That would be penny-wise. pound-foolish.

Besides, apart from slavery (which you misunderstand anyway), what justifies you thinking that you are superior to every single man and woman in the 1st century?

Raphael

Yoo,

Your first sentence is a weak appeal to emotion: only Christianity “taints” things? Are you sure secularism doesn’t “taint” opinions either?

Your second and third sentences are a genetic fallacy: Any link that an organization has with a Christian organization doesn’t mean its view is inaccurate. Another way of looking at it is that you are tarring an entire branch of Christianity.

Your fourth sentence is an interesting claim, but then the studies that claim to “prove” the opposite are fraught with complications and methodological inconsistencies. Just that these don’t get reported because anyone who tries to do so will be pounced on by Stonewall or one of its cohorts for “homophobia”.

Your fifth sentence needs further justification. An official published consensus by the APA or AMA or some other similar association doesn’t indicate a professional consensus; it indicates the result of political arm-twisting. Not to mention that desire to hold on to a job might keep many professionals toeing the line and not expressing an alternative view, for fear of legal retribution from Stonewall and its cronies.

Your sixth sentence is problematic. Your “objective” research is tainted by an a priori assumption that homosexuality is a fixed orientation. Also, “inborn uterine hormonal factors” are not necessarily natural; for all you know, these factors come from the mother taking too many birth-control pills in previous years.

On your seventh sentence: An unconscious choice is still a choice.

On your eighth: the unanswered question is: Does sexual orientation exist as an actual something over and beyond a set of empirically-observable behaviours? Of course behaviour will not change orientation, if there was orientation to change or maintain to begin with.

Bryan

Raphael,

Myth No. 1: People are born gay. Calling it a myth seems to indicate that they think it is not true. What Yoo said above is what I agree with and it differs significantly from the FRC. I was not referring to CNN, ABC, etc but the AMA and APA. This is what the scientific, unbiased research is showing. What FRC says is false and terribly biased. Your reply to Yoo is hysterical. Is this issue that personal to you? You seem a little paranoid about it.

As far as slavery, are you really going to argue that the bible does not condone slavery?Give me a break. It is listed, condoned and discussed in both the old and new testaments. It was accepted and had been around well before the 1st century (think Greece, Egypt, etc).

Lastly, to your question “what justifies you thinking that you are superior to every single man and woman in the 1st century?” Where did I say that? However, I am aware of things now that they were not back then. Like the fact that the earth is round and orbits the sun. That and concepts like DNA and basic biology allow for us to better understand the times of historical writings. Writings by the way which were by man, not woman.

Yoo

The mothers emotions alone, among many other factors, can cause hormones that affect the fetus. You don’t have to take birth control pills or any other medication for this to happen. Homosexuality has been around since man has existed, of course their were no such things to take then. I don’t think the “objective” research is tainted by a prior assumption that homosexuality is a fixed orientation, rather the research verified this conclusion. These studies were conducted over a period of around 35 years. Behavior can be separate from orientation and studies have proven it. The sexual behavior of people can be opposite their actual sexual orientation. Genetics have been shown to play a role in determining an individuals orientation, not to be a determining factor. Orientation is a combination of factors all having influence.

Raphael

Bryan,

(1) I suppose they do think that it is not true. But the point of talking about “myths” is not to claim that – not in this case at least – that people are absolutely not born gay, but rather to explode the commonly force-fed belief in America that people are born gay. And since the Gay Lobby just adores the word “myth”, it seems fit to use that word in a counter-reply to the same lobby.

Did you get my point that this is NOT what the scientific, unbiased research is showing? What the scientific research shows, from the papers that I read, is that research data is consistent with the hypothesis that there is a genetic determinant for homosexuality (and bisexuality, and heterosexuality and queerty). That is if you take the results at face value. Even at that level, logical consistency isn’t identical to proof. It doesn’t rule out the reverse argument; The Gay Lobby (e.g. Stonewall) tries to pretend it does.

And if you query a little more into these papers – you are not the only one with critical thinking skills – without going into questions of research methodology (no gay study, even the famous ones, has been successfully replicated), you can see that the interpretation is based on an a priori assumption that rules out the alternative argument automatically. It is a strangely-unmentioned conspicuous fact that Queer research papers omit other possible variables in their discussion of results. In other words, they are too politically-charged, not proper “science”. I think, hence, that it is perfectly valid to accept the experimental results, and reject the Pro-gay scientists’ interpretations of them.

In what way is my reply to Yoo “hysterical”? Please justify this (unwarranted) accusation. Well, it is sort of personal, especially because the Gay Lobby seeks to export their flawed ideology around the world, and not give other people around the world the chance to oppose it. “Hijacking the Human Rights Agenda” doesn’t make sense in the West; it does make sense if you are talking about Asia. I am Asian, by the way.

(2) Yes, I am. And I base my argument on what an non-Christian Oxford Professor says. So you can’t accuse me of religious bias. In any case, it is also a fact that the slavery the Bible discusses isn’t the slavery that you are thinking about. It is also a fact that in the Old-Testament, the Israelites were liberated from slavery in Israel, a somewhat strange thing for a pro-slavery deity to endorse, yeah?

The Bible LISTS and MENTIONS slavery, but NOWHERE does it APPROVE of slavery.

So give me a break too; I am sick and tired of hearing know-it-alls who know nothing at all claim that the Bible CELEBRATES slavery.

(3) You didn’t SAY that explicitly; what you said IMPLIED it. And , as per current research, ancient people also knew that the earth is round and orbits the sun. Muslim scholars knew that fact one millenium before the birth of Copernicus. Chinese scholars knew that at least a couple of centuries before the Muslims did. (I am ethnically Chinese.)

Also, knowing the historical times means knowing of the technological and other constraints that prevented societies from instituting certain policies. So before condemning ancient societies for debt slavery from your high horse, think carefully: was it in all ways feasible that they could – under their historical non-ideological constraints – operate a society that did not have (debt) slavery? (chattel slavery was a rarity, and the Bible did not permit it AT ALL.)

DNA was discovered by an Austrian monk.

And I included “woman” to avoid being charged with misogyny.

Bryan

Raphael,

You are good at twisting words. No where did I say the bible celebrates slavery. It does say the following:

However, you may purchase male or female slaves from among the foreigners who live among you. You may also purchase the children of such resident foreigners, including those who have been born in your land. You may treat them as your property, passing them on to your children as a permanent inheritance. You may treat your slaves like this, but the people of Israel, your relatives, must never be treated this way. (Leviticus 25:44-46 NLT)

If you buy a Hebrew slave, he is to serve for only six years. Set him free in the seventh year, and he will owe you nothing for his freedom. If he was single when he became your slave and then married afterward, only he will go free in the seventh year. But if he was married before he became a slave, then his wife will be freed with him. If his master gave him a wife while he was a slave, and they had sons or daughters, then the man will be free in the seventh year, but his wife and children will still belong to his master. But the slave may plainly declare, ‘I love my master, my wife, and my children. I would rather not go free.’ If he does this, his master must present him before God. Then his master must take him to the door and publicly pierce his ear with an awl. After that, the slave will belong to his master forever. (Exodus 21:2-6 NLT)

When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she will not be freed at the end of six years as the men are. If she does not please the man who bought her, he may allow her to be bought back again. But he is not allowed to sell her to foreigners, since he is the one who broke the contract with her. And if the slave girl’s owner arranges for her to marry his son, he may no longer treat her as a slave girl, but he must treat her as his daughter. If he himself marries her and then takes another wife, he may not reduce her food or clothing or fail to sleep with her as his wife. If he fails in any of these three ways, she may leave as a free woman without making any payment. (Exodus 21:7-11 NLT)

When a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod so hard that the slave dies under his hand, he shall be punished. If, however, the slave survives for a day or two, he is not to be punished, since the slave is his own property. (Exodus 21:20-21 NAB)

Christians who are slaves should give their masters full respect so that the name of God and his teaching will not be shamed. If your master is a Christian, that is no excuse for being disrespectful. You should work all the harder because you are helping another believer by your efforts. Teach these truths, Timothy, and encourage everyone to obey them. (1 Timothy 6:1-2 NLT)

That certainly is not condemnation . . . even sounds like approval to me.

Raphael

Yoo,

And those “many other factors” could include birth-control pills, yeah?

Homosexual behaviour has existed for a long time; whether there was an orientation at all that came along with it is questionable. And au contraire, aphrodisiacs have been common since ancient Egypt, and the ancient Egyptians invented the first condom.

Unfortunately, I have read a handful of these studies, and reading them hasn’t convinced me that research verified this conclusion. The furthest they have gone is that research demonstrates the plausibility of such a conclusion, without denying the plausibility of the converse. That is, it is possible that both situations co-exist currently. There is no need to posit anachronistic references to Ancient Egypt, Ancient China, Ancient India, Ancient Greece or Ancient whatever-country-the-gay-activist-can-think-of.

Also, just to be philosophically-picky, saying that “genetics influences a predisposition to homosexual behaviour” is not on par with saying “there is something called homosexuality that is manifest in homosexual behaviour and is caused partly by genetics”. The first statement is an inference from (presumably) empirical observation; the second is an ontological theory. The first part – the ontological definition – of the second sentence is the a priori assumption I am talking about. I am willing to concede that research proves statement number one, but I regard jumping to statement number two as being highly unscientific.

Until this logical jump is resolved, your following statements are true, but trivially true. Something like, “Research has proved that deforesting the Amazon does not result in the destruction of Unicorns’ habitats”. Well duh, we didn’t actually require research to prove that, did we? or “The beauty of forests has been shown to be a factor that influences the choice of habitats for unicorns, but not a determining factor”.

Bryan

Raphael,

You do realize that homosexuality exists in nature do you not? It appears to be a part of the sexuality of many species, to varying degrees. Is it really that hard to see sexuality on a continuum with most people being hetero, some homo and some bi? Mix in a few transgendered/transvestites and you have the full spectrum. What is the big deal? Can’t you just let people be people like you do nature? Seems there are a lot of other things to worry about than what consenting adults do with each other.

Bill Pratt

Bryan,
If you’re actually interested in what the OT says about Hebrew slavery, you may want to read this series of blog posts.

http://facebook.com/timothypate timothy

I’d like to know where you get your information from….please cite…

Raphael

Bryan,

You didn’t say it. your TENOR suggests it.

As for the Bible passages you mentioned:-

(1) Yes, it does seem harsh, doesn’t it? Except that the emphasis is not on the sentences that “condone” slavery, but on that line that says “But the people of Israel …”. And the following verses forbid exactly everything that was “condoned” previously, and even goes so far as to forbid disownership of “enslaved” kin, which is of a far higher ethical quality than the standard 1st-century Roman practice. The point of Leviticus is to set up a distinct socio-cultural identity for Israel apart from the pagan nations surrounding it.

The entire hermeneutic of Christianity vis-a-vis Judaism is a debate on who the “people of Israel” are. If you take “the people of Israel” to mean “everybody who is good”, then the argument that the Bible approves of slavery, even debt slavery, is rather useless.

(2-3) In the case of the man, everything is voluntary. In the case of the women and children, it appears unfair at first glance. But technically, the free man is not barred from taking care of his wife and children, and ensuring their welfare with his ex-master. And although you might not recognize it as such, presenting the slave before God is a strong public statement and prevents abuse of that allowance of lifetime slavery.

And of course, the provision about releasing the wife if she was married before the slavery period of ONLY 7 years.

Secondly, at least from Ex 21, it appears that the purpose of a female slave is to be a wife or concubine of her master. That is why she isn’t released if she is married to a fellow male slave by her master, because she is technically still the Master’s wife. But being the master’s wife means that her “slavery” is kept restricted by the Ten Commandments, or else she is released. She is married to the master by compulsion, but the master is supposed to treat her exactly like a wife or a daughter-in-law, and not any less. The Bible even guarantees her food, clothing and conjugal rights. In that historical context, “conjugal rights” include children’s birthrights. So although the mother (and the father) of the children might be slaves, the children themselves (re)gain their status as Israelites, so inter-generational slavery is not a logical product of the Biblical system.

So again: no endorsement of slavery, even for girls. Incidentally, according to the Bible, King David was descended from a marriage between an Israelite landowner (Boaz) and a non-Israelite slave (Ruth).

(4) The question of endorsing slavery is irrelevant to these verses. In fact, Ex 21:20-21 seeks to balance out the slave’s dignity as a human with the master’s right to have his contract fulfilled. What is not explicitly said here (because the Israelites might not have understood then) is that the master is being judged for the intentionality of hurting the slave. If he intended to kill the slave, then he violates the Fifth Commandment, which applies even to foreign slaves. If he didn’t intend to kill the slave, then the Commandment isn’t violated.

This is supplemented by verses 26 and 27, which talk about freeing the slave for compensation of knocking out teeth and eyes. It is important to note that these are not exclusive, but rather meant to indicate the spirit of Israelite Justice. So a non-corrupt biblical judge should be expected to rule that a slave ought to be freed if the master hits him or her such that legs or arms are broken. And of course freedom means that the slave has the right to go and seek treatment, even from neighbouring countries. And this verse does not make the distinction between Israelites and non-Israelites.

Once you eliminate all these, dying after a day or two would be an honestly unlikely occurrence, unless given some physical ailment that the medical technology of that era could not heal.

So once again, for the abuses of slavery that you would be thinking of, no, the Bible doesn’t approve of any of them.

(5) “fear” is “fear of God”, not “fear of the Bogeyman” or “fear of getting arrested by secret police in the dead of the night”.So your quotation of this verse shows that you are stuck in a category error. And in NT times, slavery in Israel was mostly debt slavery.

“Fear of God” is a theological concept that refers to “fearing to displease God because you love Him”. Imagine applying that to an earthly master; the master would feel ashamed to beat up such a slave, because (guess what!) the slave would be CARING for the master. And under Roman custom (for gentile converts), it would be considered uncivil to not at least pay lip service to granting such a slave freedom. That is the context to which Paul appeals to when he addresses Onesimius’s master. The subtext of that portion of that epistle is “I have trained Onesimius so that he will care for you like your brother is expected to care for you; therefore you ought to start treating him as a brother, and release him from slavery. It’s not only Christian good-standing, it is also Roman good-standing” So much then for Paul endorsing slavery!! (FYI, Paul knows the ins-and-outs of being a Roman citizen, and he uses it to the advantage of his Evangelical mission.)

(6) Same as (5).

At the end of the day, none of the verses you quoted show approval of slavery when read in their proper historical and literary (in the widest sense) context. So there!

Raphael

Bryan,

(1) Homosexual BEHAVIOUR exists in the wild, or what appears to be so anyway. (Since animals are naked, non-sexual behaviour can easily be over-interpreted by an over-zealous researcher.)

(2) I don’t find it hard to put sexual behaviour on a continuum or attitudes towards sexual identity on a continuum. But I find it hard to note each type of such as the result of a separate item called “(x)-sexuality” or “sexual orientation”. As I see it, after a period of reflection, “sexual orientation” is a phantom concept that really exists as a semantic label for an aspect of sexual behaviour. I see the function of sexual behaviour to sexuality as a many-to-one mapping, not a many-to-many mapping.

“What consenting adults do with each other” would be fine if that was all it is. If that was all it is, then we wouldn’t be having this discussion, because the Gay Lobby would have stopped at decriminalizing Gay Sex, which is the only point I agree with them on. But no, they have to go way beyond that. Homosex needs to be immunized from all criticism; the Gay Movement aims to put up an invulnerable barrier around people’s sexual choices. Hardly democratic, in my opinion. So it is no longer “what consenting adults do with each other”; it has become “what is right is what consenting adults do with each other”. And, I do think that as a member of the human race, I have the right to say that that claim is wrong, and the right to be free from pressure to say otherwise.

If this isn’t democracy, what is?

(Btw, alcoholism also has a genetic component. So should we let alcoholics “do nature” as well? This is a reductum ad absurdum argument, not an argument by analogy.)

Bryan

Raphael,

Wow, you really are a nut. Best of luck to you, but it seems you know more about homosexuality than the AMA and the APA as well as studied theologians on the bible and slavery.

Combined with your worries about the gay lobby (or is it the gay mafia) you are one stressed out, paranoid nut case. I wish you all the best, but can’t bother with these discussions anymore for they are going no where.

Raphael Wong

Bryan,

Yeah, and there goes your superiority complex again!

(1) Didn’t I say earlier that I READ APA PAPERS? What part of that did you not get, seriously? YOU are the real nut. I can’t believe I bothered staying up to craft a long reply for you that you didn’t even read!!!!

Also, my opinions on slavery in the Bible come from studied theologians and biblical historians. Does yours come from “studied theologians” or from a website like evilbible.com that CLAIMS that it quotes from “studied theologians”?

(2) I am not paranoid: what I said is exactly what the Gay Lobby is doing now or has been doing for the last 35 years, since they bullied the APA into slashing homosexuality from the DSM-IV. The more I look at it, the more I see a group of people trying to silence and castigate the opinion of religion simply because they do not agree with it. Not only that, but blocking off the alternate research path too.

And doing that in their own countries is bad enough. Forcefully exporting their doctrine to elsewhere in the world under the pretext of global human rights pomotion is a severe travesty because now they are silencing international opinion as well. And as a citizen of the international community, I don’t care how you Americans want to screw up your own country, but at least let us have the choice not to screw up ours. (In case you forgot, I AM NOT AMERICAN!!!)

I politely and patiently explained my view to you, and you didn’t even bother to engage with it. I am really disappointed, especially since you claimed to know so much about critical thinking… I guess that you can’t really critically think after all, can you?

If you want to call someone a nut, prove it. If not, scram!!

Bryan

I am well aware that you are not an American. I have traveled the globe including Israel and China and can tell you homosexuals are all around the world. The “American Gay Lobby” as you fear is not forcefully expanding their doctrine all around the world or bullying the AMA. People around the world are becoming better educated about human sexuality and allowing gays equal rights. Many countries now allow marriage equality and the sky is not falling. Argentina’s recent law change had nothing to do with American involvement. Sweden’s long time equality is another example of educated people making rational judgements on their own. You on the other hand seem to be paranoid and irrational and I would encourage you to get help. If you want to continue to respond back here, go ahead. I have learned in the past that some people only pretend to want to learn and really have an agenda that they are stuck on and nothing you will say will open their mind. I find you in that category and perhaps you find the same with me. Get a life!

Raphael

Bryan,

(1) Wrong, you have people who think that they are homosexuals because they have been influenced by Western propaganda.

(2) I didn’t say that they bullied the AMA. I said that they are trying to get their governments to bully international governments.

(3) I am fine with equal rights, but not more than that ….

(4) Are you sure that it had absolutely nothing to do with any FTA Argentina has signed with Washington?

(5) Yeah, Sweden, thought you would mention them. Well, it is still the West.

(6) I have reasoned and gone through extensive reflection over my position, and what I have now is the result of rational reflection. Whereas you seemed to have simply taken in the Gay lobby’s propaganda hook line and sinker.

(7) I come here with an open mind. But I expect to be convinced, not simply to be written off as a nut. Apparently, you have arguments, so you must resort to calling me names. I am really sorry, but that doesn’t wash as rational argument.

(8) You get a life!

Bryan

For those interested in studies of homosexuality found in nature, here is an interesting link:

Yes, I read your article. And I can supply a further justification that the author didn’t deal with: mistaken interpretation. That is, the observers mistook non-sexual behaviour for sexual behaviour, and liaison/alliance behaviour for courtship. I can accept all the scientific results, and still logically reject the interpretation given, because the interpretation is shaped by a premediated ontology slammed onto directly-observed results.

More worrying though is the conclusion of “We’re animals. And being animals, we should quit trying to pretend that we’re not.” We are “animals” only in so far as we are biologically classified under the Animal Kingdom by taxonomists. We are not animals in any other material way. We don’t have feathers, we don’t lay eggs, we don’t sleep on gum trees, or perch on bushes. This rather tiring statement of “we are all animals” needs to be put to rest.

Bryan

The main premise of the article is that all sorts of sexuality is found in nature and that variation is “normal”. And yes, the author most certainly addressed mistaken interpretation. You just don’t like the results and immediately argue anything and everything.

As to humans being part of the animal kingdom, I am sure you would like to make everyone believe we are completely separate, but that does not fly with medical/physical data. I know you won’t believe me so ask your Doctor.

Do you deny evolution too? Ask your Doctor about that too, as evolution is a basic medical principle. If in fact you don’t believe in evolution than follow your beliefs and stop going to the Doctor.

Fanatics are those that refuse to believe in physical evidence. There is little point in arguing with them, but always ask them to explain fossils . . .

Bill Pratt

Bryan,
Are you saying that because a certain behavior is found in nature, then that makes the behavior morally right?

Raphael

Bryan,

(1)Yes, I reasd the article, and yes, I got the premise. I think you confused “mistaken interpretation” with “mistaken identity”. Since the mistaken interpretation is built into the fabric of this article, the author takes it as a given and deosn’t bother to defend it.

I have nothing against the results, provided that they are obtained using a respectable methodology, which I will give the benefit of the doubt for. I have an opposition to the ideological framework used to interpret the results.

I am not contesting – never have, in fact – contested the fact that such behaviours are observed in nature. And neither am I trying to repeat Bill’s point about the moral right of nature. My point is more properly basic: the equating of human motivated behaviour with animal un-motivated behaviour is logically flawed. “homosexual” behaviours may be nothing more than play or competitive behaviours i.e. completely platonic, without an erotic element, that is shoved into the LGBT lobby”s prism. Animals don’t have Toys R’ Us, so they improvise.

My beef is with the criteria to identify behaviours of animal as heterosexual, bisexual or homosexual. That is something that the author has not dealt with at all. If you think he has, than quote me where you think he has, in interests of fair debate.

(2) No, I don’t. Your polemic merely shows you to be irrational. There are certainly similarities, that’s why the taxonomy exists in the first place. But a large number or small number of similarities doesn’t equate to identity. In my country, the police use a catchphrase as a public warning, “Low crime doesn’t mean no crime”. I’ll adapt that for you: “Low variation doesn’t mean no variation.” If you can’t get that, you are really thick, and you need to see a doctor quick.

(3) No, in fact I am a fan of evolution. My bedtime reading used to be an encyclopaedia covering developments from the Protozoic to the Cenozoic. But then, evolution is a basic BIOLOGICAL principle, not a basic MEDICAL principle. You are so confused that you have muddled up your terms.

(4) Fanatics are those who refuse to counter their opponents with logical arguments. There is little point in arguing with them, but always ask them to explain fallacies …

Bryan

Bill,

Certainly not!!! This was in reference to the phrase “crime against nature”. The beginning of the article states it better:

Sodomy has been stigmatized for century upon century, and in many cultures across the world and through time, mostly seeking to stigmatize relationships between members of the same sex. Almost invariably, when it is criminalized, those who criminalize it (or would do so) refer to it as the “crime against nature” or the “sin against nature.” The presumption is that homosexual behavior is a perversion, and a uniquely human perversion, engaged in as the result of what is presumed to be a learned attraction to members of the same sex.
There’s only one problem with that assumption: None of it is true.

Bryan

Raphael,

At least we found agreement in evolution. You mentioned earlier that you support equal rights, just not more than that. We agree in that too. For you, does that include marriage equality? If not, why not? And if not, how is that equal?

http://tangenttalk.blogspot.com Rob

It’s the blog thread that keeps on living! My e-mail keeps popping up new messages over and over.

Haven’t you guys beaten this one to death yet?

James

I feel like a couple of these myths in particular need to be refuted:

#6 Homosexual conduct is not harmful to one’s physical health.

There is no such thing as “homosexual conduct”. Each gay person acts differently: some are promiscuous, some are committed partners, some never have sex at all. While there may be a general trend among gays towards having more sexual partners than the general population, one can find the same trend among people who live in cities, younger people, black people, and non-Christians. Homosexuality does not in and of itself lead to more sex outside of marriage; instead, being white and Christian (and the majority of America IS Christian) leads to less. So make your value judgements as you will, just bear the above in mind.

While I realize there are many other arguments that can be made, such as anal sex is more damaging than vaginal sex, I am not going to get into these as I don’t have the knowledge.

In particular, the Canadian Psychological Association has reached the conclusion that the gender of the parents has no effect on the well-being of their children. This has been upheld at the level of the supreme court.

#10
While I am prejudiced to find the conclusions on domestic partnerships incorrect, until I can determine otherwise I will have to assume that the FRC is right on this one. I will post back if I get some refutations.

My point in general is that, providing I can find an answer to point #10 (I have come across one previously I just can’t find it right now), homosexuality is not bad for society or not even necessarily bad for the individuals concerned.

Raphael

James,

(1) This sounds too much like the debate about whether the cup is half-full or half-empty. You seem to be using as your basis the most promiscuous section of society. I technically agree with what you say about the individual gay person; I will not comment on statistics in this case. That is irrelevant to the more sex/ less sex issue. SO you are philosophically taking promiscuity as the norm, and apparently not just as the sample norm, but as the global norm as well? Be careful about extending your comments about USA to the rest of the world, even implicitly.

(3) I would suppose that the CPA and the Australian Psychological Association give the current scientific consensus, although I expect they follow the same modus operandi as the APA does, presenting the real scientific viewpoint in their publicity material after several lines of cat-calling gay lobbies.

As for three out of your other four links, they are by gay advocacy groups, so naturally you wouldn’t expect them to present any point against homosexuality, would you? In addition, the last link from International Order is blatantly stated as a downright political rebuttal, and the political cynic in me tells me that it is most certainly partisan towards the Gay Lobbies’ agendas, whatever they may be.

The wiley article is interesting, but I immediately get alarm bells on the first page,:-

“Because access to legal same-sex marriage is so new and rare, we do not yet have research that compares the children of married same-sex and different-sex couples. Even so, scholars have achieved a rare degree of consensus that unmarried lesbian parents are raising children who develop at least as well as their counterparts with married heterosexual parents (e.g., American Academy of Pediatrics, 2002; Stacey & Biblarz, 2001; Tasker, 2005).”

no information, and yet able to reach a “rare degree of consensus”? Sounds like it is politics, not science, that is dominating such research or public affirmations (because there is no real supporting research). And she repeats that point many times throughout the articles. All the studies she cites in “support” of her claim have at least one crucial indicator missing, per her indication. And even then she says that lesbian couples are “at greater risk of splitting up”.

(4) homosexuality is not bad for society, or bad for the individual; it is bad in the general scheme of things. It is not a bad facet of society, but a facet that shows that society is bad. The defiant attitude that undergirds the homosexual identity – independent of genetics – is shared with that of ministers or bank managers who refused to subject themselves to proper audit checks before the economic crisis struck.

Bryan

In regards to promiscuity Homo Vs. Hetro,
gay men are the most promiscuous with lesbians being the least. Hetrosexual couples are in the middle. I think this has more to do with gender than orientation.

Milos

Raphael,

Wow, that is some serious strings to follow and I am not interested in starting it up. But, how can you say you believe in evolution and NOT believe that humans are part of the animal kingdom. That makes no sense. Please explain.

Raphael Wong

Hmm Bryan,

Aren’t both/all genders supposed to be equal? How can you be so blatantly sexist? :p

Milos,

Well, feel free to start it up if you want; I am in for any lively debate.

I believe in evolution, and I accept humans as taxonomically part of the animal kingdom. But that doesn’t mean we are identical to dolphins, dogs or chimpanzees. For the last one especially, I find it misleading for people to say “it’s only a matter of degree”; a difference in degree is still a difference, and there must be still be a (proper) reason why that difference exists. You cannot simply rub off all differences with the word “degree”. We may be more similar to animals than our ancestors thought was possible, but that doesn’t mean we are totally identical. That’s why I deplore the kind of argument in the article provided by Bryan above. “We are similar to animals, therefore we are identical to animals” just doesn’t wash.

In short, it is a semantic confusion between the popular use of “animal” and the technical use of “animal”. I agree that humans are animals in the latter sense, but not in the former sense.

Does that clarify things?

Milos

Whoever said we are identical to dolphins? Dogs? Or Chimpanzees? Aside from all being mammals, of course they are all different. You seem to create straw man arguments to try and make points and then go on to split hairs and not see the forest through the trees. Your statement “We don’t have feathers, we don’t lay eggs, we don’t sleep on gum trees, or perch on bushes. This rather tiring statement of “we are all animals” needs to be put to rest.” would be an example of such. Of course we don’t have feathers – you don’t have to have feathers to be an animal. Same is true for laying eggs and sleeping in gum trees.

Fladabosco

I am an artist living near San Francisco and I know a lot of gay people. Do they have challenges than are different than straights? Sure, but anyone who is different than the majority does. The one overwhelming fact about them is that they have the same needs and desires as everyone else. They want loving families. They want comfortable lifestyles. They want to be respected in the workplace.

Your writing is full of innuendo and opinion stated as fact. No surprise considering you base your opinions on ancient scripture rather than reason.

Fladabosco

But I will say that I respect your willingness to have people who don’t agree with you published on your blog pages. Bravo for that!

Bryan

Raphael,

Surely you jest! Treating people equally and saying that they are the same are two different things. Sexism is defined as “prejudice, stereotyping, or discrimination, typically against women, on the basis of sex.”

That is not saying men and woman are the same. Clearly they are different, starting from a basic chromosomal level (xx Vs. xy).

It is factual to state that men are more promiscuous than women. However, you need to understand that common knowledge does not pertain to the individual. Clearly there are some women that are very promiscuous and some men that are not – those are exceptions to the data.

Raphael

Milos,

I don’t make strawman arguments. I look at the article carefully, analyze it line-by-line, and then make a judgement. Do you not get the difference between the taxonomic use of “animal” and the popular use of “animal”? What you are now citing is the taxonomic use, which I agree with. But when it is used to defend gay rights, it slides into the popular use, which I regard as a category error. (i.e. people are being illogical.)

Bryan,

(1) I AM jesting. Didn’t you see the smiley? But still only partially. That is the kind of the opinion that bidstrup-type people have, even if only on this issue. Since you support the bidstrup article, I logically deduced that you support the kind of attitude expressed in that article? Don’t you?

(2) You cisgenderist bigot, you forgot to mention “hermaphrodites” and “intersex”. I thought you were all for equality. For goodness sake, the world is not just made up of men and women, you know … MWAHAHAHAHA!! (Hmm … we should get you checked for inter-phobia…)

(3) Really? They are more promiscuous? You know what, I don’t really think so. I think that they are only promiscuous because they are conditioned by the totally irrational, irritating and immoral atheistic pornographic and sex industries to become as such. You only think it is factual because you have been brainwashed by the feminists to think so. If not for neo-modernist feminist brainwashing, you would realize that all the studies complaining that men are more promiscuous than women come from androphobic feminists or males with internalized androphobia.

And lest you get started on all that nonsense about how men used patriarchy to take over the world, let me remind you of the proverb, “behind every strong man lies a strong woman”. In fact, in reality, it was women who controlled the thrones for so long, queens and concubines who fought for their sons’ rights to be on the throne? For what? So that they could be in power of course! The name “patriarchy” was a clever name to hide the fact that women were really pulling the strings.

http://facebook.com/timothypate Timothy

Humans are definately animals. If you strip away all the crap that clutter our lives and put people in basic situations with nothing but our selfs to fend we regres right back to animal instincts. Look at how people behaved in that dome in New Orleans. If you listened to the stories that peopled told that had to stay in there you would know that underneath all the modern crap we are still animals.

Bill Pratt

Timothy,
What follows from what you say? What are the implications about how humans behave if, as you say, we are definitely animals?

Timothy

Bill, then we all have deep animal instincts. Homosexual urges are found in nature and since we are all natural then we all have the capabilities to be homosexual. So yes, we are born gay and yes it is natural and trying to change something which is natural can be harmful. Our relationships are natural and we can raise a family just the same as anyone else.

Maury

Timothy says… “Our relationships are natural and we can raise a family just the same as anyone else.”

Do you not see that your argument is self defeating? Religion and faith based beliefs aside, a homosexual couple CANNOT naturally raise a family because there is NO possibility of procreation.

Grace and peace,

Maury

Timothy

Maury,

Just because im gay….doesn’t mean that my penis and testicles no longer work. If I wanted to have a baby I most definitely could. So yes I can procreate if I want to. I’m sure most homosexuals with children are a lot better than some of the heterosexual ones that teach hate and intolerance.

Maury

Timothy,

I am confident that they do work properly; however you referred to a homosexual relationship as being natural when it actually defies nature. You would have to go outside your homosexual relationship to engage in a natural heterosexual relationship in order to procreate. Therefore by your logic you would be guilty of infidelity.

I agree there are unfortunately many hetero families that teach hate and intolerance however myself and my family do not. You should not pigeon hole people that way, which is in and of it’s self hateful and intolerant.

Grace and peace,

Maury

Bill Pratt

Timothy,
Are you arguing that if we find any behavior in nature (the non-human animal world), then that behavior is then morally acceptable for humans?

Gman

as an outside observer that just stumbled on this page, I found Bill to be very fair and his arguments not logically refuted. The exchange with “Jim” was interesting as Jim just blindly said the pamphlet is bogus without anything to back it up while the pamplet has numerous citations and references. Citations and references themselves coudl be flawed but it is already an order of magnitude higher to cite like subject matter of reputable sources.
Personallly, I struggle with the issue as I currently have a few gay friends and have had a few throughout the course of my life. They are wonderful people and I adore them. I try not to pass judgement on them (but I am human) as I know there are things that are imperfect in my own life. Wouldn’t we all like to have a perfect nuclear family – however, that has never existed in my experience. The dad cheats, the mom cheats, someone is on drugs or is an alcoholic, etc. The Judeo-Christian background that I have says it is all wrong and no sin is any greater than another sin in God’s eyes – so it does seem like the church attacks the gay issue with a ferociousness that it does not attack the proper role of husbands, wives, etc.

Raphael

haha,

I thought this thread was dead :p

Gman,

well, if you hang around atheist blogs as much as I do, you’ll soon realize that “debaters” like Jim are the norm. The problem with people like Jim is that they have pre-emptively made up their minds on what sources are “untrustworthy”. It is interesting to note that NARTH is made up of professional scientists, not amateur hacks; they were dissidents from the 1973 APA decision.

Whether the Church attacks the gay issue ferociously depends on which church you are at. Some churches embrace the issue so whole-heartedly that they call themselves “gay churches”. On the other extreme, you have Pat Robertson.

I come from the Catholic Church, which adds that there are different types or “occasions” of sin, and although no sin is any greater than any other in terms of physical form, the level of intent varies the severity of punishment.

But also, I think the reason why the gay issue attracts so much ferociousness is because the gay issue is being used as a foil to attack the Church by people who dislike the Church for other reasons, proper or mistaken. Anyhow, the Church’s views – especially the Catholic Church – are often misrepresented, even by defenders. (I have to say here that even Bill misrepresents the view a little. And I mostly support him.)

Because the gay issue and its correlate, sexuality, are complex topics, the nuances of Church teaching can be lost.

Not only that, but there are lots of red herrings too. The two famous red herrings are China and Japan. Apart from questionable identification of “repressed homosexuality”, lots of literary works are quoted out of context. So for example, a gay activist might tell you, “You see, the Chinese are far more tolerant than the Americans. In famous literary works like ‘the Romance of the 3 Kingdoms’, Generals have homosexual relationships with their commanders.” Ignoring the fact that the “Lost Generation” of Chinese are not familiar with their literary works, thanks to the Cultural Revolution, if you would flip a few chapters ahead, that relationship ends in disaster for the general. A similar dubiousness exists for Japanese courtly narratives. Apart from the idea that courtly narratives are based on gossip, there is also a problem of generalizing courtly behaviour to the general population. If you told your history professor that “The fact that King Henry VIII had 7 wives demonstrates a national characteristic of prosmiscuity in the English” you would be probably censured for over-generalization, but that is exactly what queer historians do with Japanese courtly narratives, and that gets praised as “cultural progress”.

China and Japan are ancient societies with very oblique cultural codes. Japanese and Chinese youth might have slightly more flattened hierarchy, but they still possess the cultural codes. As Asians, both are “polite” in the sense that they won’t overtly tell you they dislike you unless you really piss them off. Unlike Americans and French, who use “f**k” way too liberally. But because they are quiet or “tolerant”, doesn’t mean they agree with, let alone, endorse the behaviour. In fact, the queer communities in Japan and China, if you read local western-oriented newspapers, complain that of social exclusion through ignorance and indifference!

Perhaps it is a coincidence, but the traditional (pre 19th-C) Japanese word for “gay” (yaoi) rhymes with the Japanese word for “pervert” (hidoi).

Bill Pratt

Hi Gman,
I would also like to take up your point about the church attacking the gay issue disproportionately. As Raphael pointed out, it depends on the church you’re in. My own personal experience has been that pastors rarely talk about homosexuality. At my church, our pastor preaches through a book of the Bible over several months, and he would only raise the issue of homosexuality if the text mentions it. Since there are only a handful of passages in the Bible that explicitly deal with the issue, it just doesn’t come up very much.

Another data point would be my blog. I’m a conservative, evangelical Christian, and I write on a wide variety of topics, yet I’ve only written 7 posts which touch on homosexuality out of 389 posts. I wouldn’t say that’s a disproportionate treatment of the issue.

If there weren’t an aggressive campaign to normalize the gay lifestyle and re-define marriage, I probably wouldn’t write about it at all. As you say, our time is better spent on building strong biblical marriages. By the way, our church does spend a lot of time on that topic, both in sermons and in lay education classes.

Thanks for commenting,
Bill

Raphael

Haha…

I am supposed to be in the “Homophobic” Catholic Church, but for some reason, I hear very few sermons on the “gay issue”. As far as I can tell, there is much more criticism of divorce than homosexuality. If homosexuality is ever mentioned, it is almost always as a passing remark. In fact, some people in my parish back home actually complain that there is insufficient focus on the issue!

The problem with the people promoting homosexuality – regardless of sexual “orientation” – is that they pluck out one line out of a long speech and turn it into an advertisement for armageddon. And ironically, it is the people who most like talking about context who take things out of context. :S

Gman

Bill & Raphael,
Thank you for taking time to comment on my comment
I am sensitive to the retort that a lot of non believers have for Christians and that is that “Christians are hypocrites”. A non-christian will cite a specific Christian that cheats in business and yet, the same cheater, will pass harsh judgments on homosexuals. As Christians, we know that we are imperfect but for some reason, the rest of the world is just looking to dismiss us with the hypocrite argument because they do not understand the true message of the gospel. So I try to discuss the homosexual argument on an even playing field with people – for example, when my parents go on and on about how bad it is to be gay, I tell my dad (who is overweight) that it is also a sin to be gluttonous. We must be careful to discuss this issue with sensitivity if we are to have homosexuals take the faith seriously.
Keep up the good work!

Bill Pratt

Gman,
Thanks again for stopping by.

God bless,
Bill

Raphael

Gman,

The difference between the business-cheating and the condemnation is that the business-cheating is that person’s personal decision, whereas the condemnation is an echo of what other people think. And those people who did come up with the condemnation in the first place were not hypocrites; they had no luxury to be hypocrites.

Secondly, Hypocrisy is bad, but being hypocritical does not mean being materially false. Associating the truth of the proposition with the person uttering the proposition is called the genetic fallacy in logic. So, saying that you shouldn’t listen to hypocrites per se is the genetic fallacy in action. The exception is when someone does something contrary to what he says, and something contrary to what he says happens to him. In the case of the person cheating in business, there is no causal link between cheating in business and engaging in homosexual sex (or any other mode of sex for the matter). This is why the worst scandals which opponents capitalize on are when pastors who have been vehemently damning homosexuality are found with homosexual partners.

As for your dad, well you can tell him that there are different occasions of sin, and while everything is a sin, the level of culpability the individual has for the sin varies with the circumstances of the occasion. So if homosexuals do sincerely believe that they are homosexual, then their culpability for each of their homosexual acts is reduced. Homosexual acts are not made any less sinful, but the burden of responsibility shifts elsewhere; where exactly is a matter of debate. So tell your father: if his gluttony is more willful than the homosexual’s gay sex, then he is sinning more severely than the gay/lesbian/trans/bi/asexual/questioning/queer/whatever.

Of course, he might tell you that there is a obesity gene, as proven by a study done at the University of Connecticut … :S

P.S.: interesting question: I always wondered how queerness could be genetic. And for that matter, trans…

Fish Cabo

The best thing about that is it is true. Thanks for the insight.

Raphael

Fish Cabo,

Please elaborate on what you are referring to…

Andrew Ryan

Raphael: “P.S.: interesting question: I always wondered how queerness could be genetic”

There is a strong correlation between 1) a man being gay and 2) That man’s sisters having more than the average number of children.

In other words, if you have, say, a gay son and two straight daughters, on average you will end up with as many (if not more) grand-children than anyone else with three kids.

It seems that whatever ‘X’ is (the complex collections of genes, circumstances and developmental factor lead to men being gay), it also leads to straight women being more fecund. If this is the case, then it would explain the survival of whatever ‘X’ is among the population. Although the gay men it produces would be less likely to pass it on, the same men’s sister’s would be MORE likely to pass it on.

An added point – genetic is not necessarily the same as hereditary. Down’s Syndrome can be described as ‘genetic’, but Down’s Syndrome children don’t tend to have kids.

Roland

You talk about the scientific facts. As far as I have gathered, correct me if I’m wrong, your main reason against homosexuality is that science says it is unhealthy. There is a funny thing when you use science to prove something. To be true to science, you can’t bring your biases to the table. Which is something that you haven’t done. It is blatantly obvious in your article. You do realize that scientific conclusions and blind studies can be easily swayed by preconceived notions on how things are? It is a rare thing, even in the scientific world, for one to truly put their biases aside to find the facts.

These scientists and studies can be easily swayed. You have scientists on both sides of this issue with “proof”. Just like you have scientists that are disproving the existence of God. As well as ones that are proving that He is real. Global warming is another example. If you pay attention to the history of man, you’ll see that science isn’t always right. More correctly, the humans involved in science aren’t always right. There are scientists that said that “A” was healthy for people to consume. Years later they tell us that “A” is quite detrimental to our health. The constant going back and forth on “Facts” in the scientific community is quite laughable.

What would you do if science one day said unanimously that homosexuality was healthy and not harmful?

Bill Pratt

Roland,
So does this mean that you remain completely agnostic about all scientific findings? You really don’t believe any of science’s results? That’s what it seems like you’re arguing.

http://? Adam

Where sre you getting your facts?
Please state the sources and link to them.

Otherwise, you are merely stating you opinion, which is to say the least biased.

Adam

Andrew Ryan

Raphael: “. If you told your history professor that “The fact that King Henry VIII had 7 wives demonstrates a national characteristic of prosmiscuity in the English” you would be probably censured for over-generalization”

Just a humeroys post for Good Friday: You history teacher would more likely point out that Henry VIII married six times, not seven!

And your comment is irrelevant. “Queerness” is a different orientation from “Gayness”. Being Queer and being Gay are different, according to the Q and G people, so your comments on G do not apply to Q.

Down’s Syndrome kids get the genes from their parents. Down’s Syndrome is caused by recessive genes, that is genes whose effects are blocked out by their dominant (no syndrome) version. A phenotypically healthy person may possess the Down Syndrome gene. So yes, genetic is the same as hereditary. Although, possessing the gene is not the same as suffering from a condition caused by the gene.

Andrew Ryan

Go on then, what’s the difference between queerness and gayness?

Andrew Ryan

“I always wondered how queerness could be genetic”

So a) what exactly do you mean by ‘queerness’ and b) why do you wonder how it can be genetic?

I ask the first question because you claim it’s not the same thing as being gay. I ask the second question because you accept Down’s Syndrome is genetic, so whatever is confusing you about the ‘genetic’ question, it’s not the old idea that ‘Queer or gay people aren’t having kids, so it can’t be genetic’.

The negative statistices of the “gay” lifestyle clearly mitigate against said lifestyle, but the bibical injunction against homosexual activity is determinative. Homosexuality is condemened along with lying, adultry, murder, theft and idolatry.

Those who argue in favor of homosexual behavior have either rejected bibical teaching or do not know of God’s truth in these matters. Jesus Christ died for all of us, each and every one of us, but we must believe on His name and surrender ourselves to His will, as best we understand it. This is the only cure of evil and the only hope for mankind.

Andrew Ryan

Homosexuality is condemned along with eating shellfish and wearing mixed fabrics. And of course slavery is condoned. Do you accept all that, or do you ‘reject biblical teaching’?

“then we should be able to find research on gays who live in communities that embrace them which contradicts all of the so called “blind” statistics which show their lifestyle to be destructive.”

I’m pretty sure that is exactly what the stats DO show. Funnily enough, gays who live in communities that bully gay are more likely to commit suicide that gays who live in non-bullying communities. This isn’t that surprising.

“my understanding is that the research yields the same kinds of results regardless of where it is done.”

While I agree that homosexuality is sinful, I feel as though a few of these points were entirely fabricated. You mentioned “research” in your first point. What research? Where did you find this? You are just saying things are this way with no evidence presented.

Andrew Ryan

Interestingly, what that pamphlet cites as “…one of the strongest pieces of evidence for the possibility of change” on page 7 is Dr Spitzer’s study of 2003 on ‘gay cures’. Dr Spitzer has just announced that his study was flawed and that he is retracting it.

http://questionablemotives.wordpress.com/ tildeb

From the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry:

“Current research shows that children with gay and lesbian parents do not differ from children with heterosexual parents in their emotional development or in their relationships with peers and adults. It is important for parents to understand that it is the the quality of the parent/child relationship and not the parent’s sexual orientation that has an effect on a child’s development.”

From the American Psychological Association:

“In summary, social science has shown that the concerns often raised about children of lesbian and gay parents’ – concerns that are generally grounded in prejudice against and stereotypes about gay people – are unfounded. Overall, the research indicates that the children of lesbian and gay parents do not differ markedly from the children of heterosexual parents in their development, adjustment, or overall well-being.”

These professional conclusions do not have to be this way. If the data showed that gay and lesbian child-rearing practices were harmful then these conclusions would be different. In comparison, the source you use to try to discredit the professional conclusions are from the Family Research Council, which is a religious organization, that does not represent tens of thousands of practicing counseling healthcare professionals nor the tens of thousands of studies relied upon to arrive at these unbiased conclusions.

Raissa

Can you please cite your sources? I wanted to tell this to a friend and I want to show him the researches/journals related to this topic.. Thank youuu!

No. 4 only mentions adults and does not account for the fact that in younger generations more and more people are identifying as LGBT (presumably because it isn’t necessarily a death sentence anymore) and the actual percentage is probably around 7%.

No. 5 implies that those who are homosexual are predisposed to being psychotic. Does it not occur to you that being ostracized, victimized, and otherwise alienated might cause people to turn to substance abuse or become depressed? Higher levels of substance abuse, depression, and other pathological disorders can be seen among EVERY minority. It is particularly high among homosexuals due to the nature of how they are divided from other people, and the level of hostility in their treatment by many.

No. 8 requires some evidence, some statistic… something substantive to believe that claim, which by the way is entirely insulting. Pedophilia is an attraction to children. Homosexuality is attraction to someone of the same gender. One has to do with age, the other with gender. Do not mar those lines. 100% of cases of molestation of underage girls is perpetrated by heterosexual males, does that mean heterosexuals are pedophiles?

No. 9 regards education and income, looking at them statistically instead of by case (though I know plenty of homosexuals who, due to their orientation, were kicked from home and have no education). Discarding that, the ‘fact’ you provides has nothing to say of violence. No one is killed or beaten for being heterosexual. A majority of homosexuals are threatened, many beaten, and in some awful cases even killed for their orientation. Homosexuals are typically ostracized growing up, as well, and in many cases bullied in their teenage years – startlingly more often than their heterosexual peers and to a much more extreme extent.

Carpe Diem and be the light

You really need to travel, meet people, study history, study science and history. Youre in a bubble that you dont understand yet and maybe never will .. But more importantly ” love they neighbor as you would like to be loved “treated”. I’m not religious, but I agree with Jesus’ teachings.